The Hemp Connection [Search results for clean eating] 

Clean Eating. It's the new buzzword in diet world. I know its users are well-intended, but I get concerned about some of the judgmental ways in which I see it being used. After all, in 30 years of doing this work, most of the people I've worked with have felt badly about themselves because of their weight, and they have a tendency to use their food language as a code for expressing that.

Got a news flash for you.

What you eat is what you eat. It's nothing more, nothing less.

Of course, the type of food that"clean eating" promotes is something I'm on board with. I'm just becoming concerned about how this term is taking on meanings about character and self-worth that it does not and will never deserve.

--It doesn't earn you brownie points in heaven.
--It doesn't make you a better person than your neighbor or coworker.
--It doesn't guarantee freedom from illness.
--If it's not what you think you should be eating, and you eat it anyway, it doesn't earn you the right to a binge to punish yourself for the bad act you just committed.

You know what they say about porn, even if you can't specifically define it…you know it when you see it. Food that supports your best possible self is pretty obviously just that. Food that isn't, well, you know it when you see it. You don't even need me to write about it, really. What you mostly want here, is either for me to validate your choices or to inspire you to make different ones.

This blog is not about telling you what you should eat. It's about introducing you to foods you may have become afraid to eat because you've been told they're high-glycemic. Or too high in carbs (like those strawberries I wrote about the other day.) Or"unclean". Most of you have problems with your diets because they're not varied enough. Or because you're undoing the imbalances that too much restricting from some previous diet brought on.

I don't allow my clients to use words like"clean","good","right"…when describing their eating. It's counterproductive. It's really important for them to understand that as they are when they walk in the door, I enjoy their presence. There is nothing they are going to do to change that. If they didn't need help with their eating they wouldn't be coming to me in the first place, so there's no point in pretending to be perfect so I'll like them. I already like them.

I challenge you to start becoming aware of how many halos you attempt to hang over your head with your food language. When you stop focusing on using food to be acceptable, what is left? What is focusing on food allowing you to avoid? When we can figure that out…that's when the real changes can begin.

For a day, just a day, be aware of what kind of language you use to describe your food habits. Do your words suggest that you have more worth or value as a person because of what is on your plate? Or that you are a better person than someone else based on what they brought to work for lunch? If eating a certain way makes you feel better (more energy, mood stability, etc.), that's one thing. But if how you're eating makes you feel better or worse about yourself in general, it's time to take a look at why.

And we'd love your feedback. I gave PCOS Diva and soon-to-be inCYST Network member Amy Medling a heads up that this blog post was coming out. She's a big proponent of clean eating and I didn't want her to think I was singling her out in any way. Her immediate response was that maybe we should come up with a better way to describe it. So here's your chance. How can we describe eating that supports healthy metabolism that doesn't easily become a judgmental way to talk about your personal character? Any and all ideas are welcome.

And while you're figuring it out…take a moment and savor the lyrics of this song. It's really, really true. Even if your breakfast was an Egg McMuffin and not oatmeal, or you snacked on red vines instead of hummous and veggies.: )

If you follow this blog you know I have a pretty huge issue with the term"clean eating". I get what it's supposed to mean, but I really struggle with how many times I see it referred to with an air of superiority by the person who's talking about it. Eating isn't supposed to make you better than anyone else, it'supposed to nourish you regardless of what you think of others or vice versa.

Many women we work with at inCYST also have trouble with feeling as if there is something inherently"wrong" with them, or that they're broken and in need of fixing. The word"clean", which is the opposite of"dirty" completely plays into a mindset we're trying to undo.

And finally it's still based on rules, and when you're following someone else's rules, you're not entirely in control of your food choices.

I finally came up with something that describes what I wish for all of you. That is, that your eating is EMPOWERED.

Easy to procure and prepare
Marketers would have you think it has to come from someplace exotic and be put through some convoluted manufacturing process to be good for you. Not all antioxidants come from the rainforest and not all foods with health benefit have some other labeling halo like raw, gluten-free, or vegan.

If you live in a small town, or have a tight budget, or have never taken a cooking class, you can still eat well. In fact, some of the unhealthiest eaters I know make many false assumptions about their food religion of choice. There are healthy and unhealthy choices within all food religions. It's how you choose within your belief system that matters.

Mindfully eaten

My friend and I were recently at the Mar Vista Farmer's Market in Los Angeles enjoying an impromptu chocolate tasting by Patricia Tsai, owner of Choco Vivo. She proudly makes stone ground chocolate, flavored in layers that unfold as you let it sit on your tongue. As we were enjoying her lesson, two women came up, grabbed a few pieces of chocolate, downed them without chewing, and walked off. Patricia's disappointment was so evident in her face. She'd put so much time into her product…I was insulted for her as I watched these mindless chocolate eaters.

If you're eating something because you think you're addicted to it and have no control over it, or you overcontrol it because it's high-glycemic or a carbohydrate, or you're thinking more about the calories and whether or not what you've served yourself is going to be enough, or you're eating what a dietitian told you to eat even though you don't like it…you're eating mindlessly. It's only when you're fully present with your food and savoring all, not resenting it or it has to offer that you can truly be full. Until you can do this, you will struggle with eating well. Even if everything on your plate is"clean" or"healthy".

Provides adequate nutrients
As I've said before, I don't have to tell you that a carrot provides more nutritional value than a donut. Your problem is not that you don't know what your best choices are. Rather, it is the barriers that keep you from making them.

Organic when possible

Pesticides have been shown to be linked to hormone problems. Best to minimize your exposure to them. And be sure to thoroughly wash all produce, organic or not, before eating it.

Whole and wholesome
The fewer steps between the vine, the tree, the ground and you…the more value it has to you.

Energy providing and sustaining
A good balance of carbohydrate, protein, and healthy fat will help to keep your energy stablized and enduring. This blog is about helping you learn to confidently eat in that fashion.

Reasonably priced
It shouldn't break your bank to eat well. In fact, if you're finally going to kick the binge eating habit, you may end up saving a lot more money than you think. Extra lattes, vending machine snacks, rack up the money. Eating basic whole foods, in season, is not only bood for YOU, it's good for your wallet.

Ecologically sustainable
If it's good for the planet, it's good for you. Did you know it's not just humans having trouble with fertility? Many other species are not reproducing the way they should. We're all falling victim to the same problem, our planet is out of balance. Putting it back together is one of the most important things we can do.

Bingeing, eating food out of season, overeating a certain food as a culture to the point of depletion, not prioritizing local eating and purchasing…are all out-of-balance practices that when addressed, will have a net effect of enhancing your health.

Delicious

I can't believe I even have to include this, but it is the most overlooked factor in choosing food. If you're not going to like it…do you really think you're going to eat it for the rest of your life?

Didn't think so.

I hope you like the concept of empoered eating vs. clean eating. It's designed to make sure the one in charge of your health…is ultimately YOU.

So you've been told you need to clean up your nutrition act, and you've stopped eating the Fritos. You've decided to stop being the reason the stock price of your local fast food restaurant has weathered the Wall Street willies. Your salad dressing shelf in your refrigerator is now half of what's in your refrigerator.

Still no luck.

Hey, isn't eating better supposed to be the answer?

Depends on how you define eating better.

I'm noticing with my inCYST classes that a disproportionate percentage of women coming for information have adopted vegetarian practices. And I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't part of the problem.

No, the problem isn't that you're vegetarian. It's how you're defining vegetarian, and it's how you go about being one that matters. Here are my simple rules for being the healthiest (potentially fertile) vegetarian you can be.

1. Define your vegetarianism by what you DO eat.

Most people I know who become vegetarian after eating meat, define that practice in terms of what they DON'T eat. They DON'T do red meat. They DON'T do dairy. They DON'T do fish. DON'T, DON'T, DON'T.

Therein lies the problem.

A most important rule of nutrition is, when you eliminate an entire category of food, for whatever reason, be it meat or wheat, you are also eliminating crucial nutrients that this category contains.

My definition of vegetarian is someone who meets all of their complete nutritional needs without using animal products.

Do you know what fertility-related nutrients you're likely short on if all you've done is cut out meat? If not, read on!

2. Zap yourself with zinc!

Zinc is needed for oodles of reactions that keep your body running, from your brain to your ovaries. Are you eating whole grains? Beans? Pumpkin and sunflower seeds? Nuts? Oops…go get your shopping list, right now, and put them down!

3. Forgetting folate can be fatal

You likely know about this nutrient since there has been so much publicity about its role in pregnancy. Put spinach on your sandwich instead of lettuce…make sure your morning cereal is fortified…eat more beans and split peas…and become savvy with sunflower seeds!

4. Cultivate a copper attitude

It's not as famous as folate, but it still is important to remember. Outside of red meat, its vegan sources are rather random: molasses, green olives, cocoa, nuts, avocadoes, black pepper, sunflower seeds…hopefully at least one of these sounds tasty!

5. Try to remember tryptophan

Tryptophan is a building block for serotonin, one of the major neurotransmitters regulating the brain's hormone center. For vegetarians, there are still a lot of options even if you're not using dairy products or eating turkey. Does your pantry have…cocoa, mangoes, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, oats, dates, chickpeas, peanuts, bananas, and sunflower seeds? It needs to.

6. Allow for algae

If you're vegan, chances are you're not getting enough DHA and EPA, the omega-3 fatty acids primarily found in fish. Become friendly with an ingredient known as Life's DHA, a marine algae source of DHA (unfortunately not EPA), that is being added to vegan-friendly foods. The link I'm providing gets you to the most recent list of foods containing this ingredient that you may want to become proficient at finding.

7. Not all vegan products are created equally healthy. Be sure if you've gone vegan, that you are aware of oils that can interfere with healthy balance. These oils are all vegan, but tend to be pro-inflammatory: safflower, sunflower, soybean, corn, cottonseed, sesame. (Remember my"S and C" rule from previous posts. If you're eating absolutely no meat at all, but you're eating a salad doused with soybean oil-based dressing…that could be a problem. Become familiar with brands that are made with olive or canola oils, or learn to make vinaigrettes. (Canola is the"C" oil exception, by the way.

8. Be happy without hydrogenated.

Hydrogenated = trans fat. Enough said.

9. Forget the fructose…high fructose corn syrup, that is.

It's been connected to insulin resistance in more than one study. And despite what marketers would really like you to believe, more than one nutrition expert does not endorse its use.

10. Be pro-protein

This is the most obvious one…know your complementary proteins and be sure your diet includes them. One caveat…soy may be hard on your thyroid function and is not a good choice if you have a family history of breast cancer. Be sure you are reading labels, as soy is a filler in many, many foods.

I like to look for patterns that make nutrition recommendations easy to recommend. In this post, it didn't work out that way. A lot of these foods are random. If I'm not giving you ideas that seem easy to work into your food plan…think of consulting with one of our experts! That's what we excel at, and that's what we're waiting to help you with.

After all, you became vegan to be healthy, let's work together to do it correctly.

Yesterday I had lunch with a dear friend at a local favorite pizzeria, Pizzeria Bianco. It's hugely popular and until recently the line for a table could last several hours due to limited hours the establishment was open. They extended their hours of business so we decided to check it out. It was a wonderful visit with my friend, and I hugely enjoyed my pizza rosa, a thin crust, cheeseless pizza with red onions and pistachios. (Note: this establishment does not add cheese to their pizza, it was not some kind of"dietitian" request on my part. And I don't choose to eat there because they don't use cheese…I eat there because I adore their pizzas!)

I mentioned on Facebook that I'd had pizza for lunch and a good friend was surprised (I think pleasantly) to know that.

Ahhhh…the dietitian's halo. Of course I eat pizza! And ice cream. And even corn chips on a rare occasion. But I also made calabacitas this week. I've had Greek yogurt muesli with strawberries for breakfast every morning. And I'm trying a new miso eggplant recipe here tomorrow.

I shared with my friend that when I eat pizza, I make sure it's pizza worth eating. I don't eat pizza just because it's there. And even though I do love my Bianco pizza rosa, it did knock me out in the afternoon to eat that much carb without protein to balance it. So I couldn't, and wouldn't, do that every single day. It was a treat.

I'd rather share my normal in's and out's, than try to present a false impression that I eat"perfectly", or that there is even such a thing as"perfect" eating.

I've been thinking for awhile about what I would call the kind of eating I advocate for here, since the term"clean" eating just doesn't sit right with me. I'll share my thoughts tomorrow.

Now it's time to gear up for a Moroccan-themed potluck dinner a friend has organized for tonight. Yup, I do potlucks too, and I'm super excited about this one!

inCYSTer Christine Marquette recently gave a great, detailed webinar about supplements and PCOS. In it, she pointed out that there are certain nutrients women with PCOS may need more of because their metabolism is altered.

What I've been wondering ever since, is whether or not they need more because their intentional eating plans have thrown them out of balance…or would they need more even if they ate absolutely perfectly? The research does support these additional needs, but what the studies do NOT do, is provide women with healthy food for a period of time to discern whether those needs exist even when the diet has been brought back into balance. I suspect the needs would still be different, although not perhaps not quite as remarkable as they are when you're not eating well.

I thought, once a week, I'd introduce you to a vitamin or mineral and challenge you to see if you eat enough of it, regularly, over the course of the day.

Once you bring all of your vitamins and minerals back to baseline, then you can more accurately determine whether or not supplementation is going to work for you. If you want to check out how you're doing, check out http://www.fitday.com/, where you can enter all of your foods and check out how your own intake measures up to the recommendations for the vitamins and minerals.

Vitamin A
How do you do with the following foods?
liver carrots broccoli leaves (not the commonly eaten florets) sweet potatoes butter kale spinach pumpkin collard greens cantaloupe egg yolks
Keep this list handy over the next week and think of ways you can be sure you're getting enough vitamin A. Here are some suggestions.
1. If you make your own smoothies, be sure to throw a handful of leafy greens into them. Even if they're fruit flavored, a handful won't make a difference flavor-wise, but they'll make a huge difference nutrition-wise.
2. If you juice, which is the easiest way to get tons of vitamin A, be sure to balance all that carbohydrate with some protein. The biggest problem with juicing for people who tend to be insulin resistant is the huge carbohydrate load in comparison to the protein juice tends to not provide.
3. Always buy the darkest possible greens for your salad
4. Think kale chips, broccoli chips, etc. They're easy to make and tasty to munch on!
5. If that hour between arriving home and eating dinner is a problem, stock your refrigerator with baby carrots and hummous to snack on while you wait.
6. Try putting spinach leaves instead of plain lettuce on your sandwiches.
7. I'm a huge fan of omelets and frittatas. I never ate Swiss chard until I learned to put it into a frittata. It's also a great way to clean out the vegetable bin at the tail end of the week, it's a cheap dinner (it adds some eggs to your diet), and it's so easy on those nights when you come home exhausted and not wanting to think about anything complicated for dinner.
8. Boil up some eggs and keep them handy for snacks and to top salads with. We tend to be afraid of eggs because of the outdated information about cholesterol. They're actually quite healthy, quite convenient, and something that can make getting vitamin A…as well as protein…a little bit easier.
9. Still have an abundance of vegetables after eating the frittata? Why not make some soup! I have a slow cooker and it is the best appliance for making an easy dinner. A few minutes in the morning and I've got the house smelling great by late afternoon. If thinking about this in the morning while you're rushing out the door just isn't going to work…try putting everything in the slow cooker the night before and programming your smart phone to remind you to plug it in before you leave for work.
10. Stir fry! It's quick and it's easy. You can also buy chopped up vegetables if you want it to be even easier.
OK, let's do it! Let us know how you do with the challenge, or if you have new suggestions to add.

Lots of responses to part one of this, which confirmed that this topic really hit home and the carbo-loading phenomenon is common amongst people who bounce back and forth between low carb eating and carbohydrate bingeing.

The second thing that happens when most people get to the point where they are so carbohydrate depleted, is that they tend to look for foods that are processed carbohydrates. In all the years I have been doing this work…I have yet to hear someone tell me they binged on asparagus, or on brown rice, or on quinoa! It's always the packaged foods, or it's something from some sort of restaurant.

And the worst binges always seem to happen over the weekend, when people are out of their weekly routine, they're tired, they're with friends…all their defenses are down and it's easy to go for the tortilla chips in the basket or to say,"Yes, I'd like fries with that!"

The important thing to remember about processed food, is that it is higher in sodium compared to the"clean" eating you're trying to pursue the rest of the week. And it can take some time for your kidneys to process and eliminate all of that sodium. While all those molecules are waiting in line to get out of your system, they're hanging around with water molecules. That's just how it works…where there is sodium, there is water.

Think about the head game you set yourself up for if this is what you've done and you're a little obsessive with the scales.

Your weight looks pretty good on Friday morning, and about 3 pm on Friday your co-workers talk you into joining them for Mexican food at the joint down the street from the office. Saturday morning, one margarita, two baskets of chips, and a chimichanga later, you wake up feeling a little bloated. You get on the scale…and it's 4 pounds heavier than it was the morning before!

Talk about demoralizing! It's enough to throw you into a weekend-long"what's the use" binge.

Here's a little tip that can really help get you out of that obsessive cycle.

Remember, we are creatures of habit. Our Mondays are more like Mondays than they are like Wednesdays or Fridays. What we eat on Mondays…doesn't really vary that much. So it makes no sense to compare a Monday weight to a Wednesday weight.

If you tend to go out on Fridays, you are likely going to carry some water weight related to the sodium intake, for a couple of days. Even if you eat the amount of food you intended to.

It's best, if you're someone who is obsessive with the scales, to compare Monday weights to Monday weights, and Friday weights to Friday weights. Comparing Monday morning's weight to the past Friday morning's weight…is sure to set you up for head games and unnecessary bingeing.

Part 3, later this week…will be about hormones and weighing in.

… only a “bad” choice. At least that’s the way I choose to look at it these days. I find that I’ve been able to maintain good health and normal weight the past few years after adopting a more realistic approach to the way I eat.

In the past I was a slave to the “all or nothing” mentality, and in the long-term it got me nowhere, though in the short term it seemed to produce results. If I was seeking fat loss, sure, the fat came off if I ate 100% “clean”, no treats, no cheats. Ever. Eventually, once I’d reached a goal (or a breaking point!) I’d end up overdoing it with whichever foods I’d declared off-limits. And after that, well… I would feel like I failed, and these things became part of my daily habits seemingly overnight once more. Sound familiar?

The truth is, foods like these were only “bad” for me when they were the foundation of my diet. These days, I choose to approach my eating habits in a more realistic way. I live in the real world, not some “perfect eaters Utopia” and, I love burgers, cookies, chocolate, and wine (among other foods commonly found on dieters’ Do-Not-Eat lists). At the same time though, I understand that these foods are not always the most nutritionally sound choices, and too much of any of them not only leads to less-than optimal health, they can provide way too many calories, possibly pushing my weight/body fat in the wrong direction.

So, I focus on having a strong and healthy foundation by eating primarily lean proteins, plenty of vegetables and fruits – essentially, foods that are more nutritionally balanced and promote good health. I re-labeled these other foods from bad foods to treats. The definition of the word"treat" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is:"an especially unexpected source of joy, delight or amusement."

How do I do this? If there is a special occasion coming, and I know there will be something there that I consider an indulgence rather than the foods that make up my foundation, I will plan for that by keeping the rest of my meals leading up to that special occasion particularly healthy. If there is no special occasion, I will take note of my cravings throughout the week, and based on what my body is asking for, that weekend I’ll go out for a treat. Sometimes it’s as simple as a little frozen yogurt, or a cookie at Paradise Bakery. Sometimes I really want some pizza or a hamburger. Whatever it is, I make sure to honor that craving, enjoying the meal and then continue with my usual healthy diet. I guess you can call it a “common-sense” diet.

I can understand that this approach may not work for everyone, but it works for me more than any restrictive diet ever has. I was initially afraid to give this a shot, thinking I’d be tempted to just keep eating the “junky” stuff. Yet, here I am, pleasantly surprised that I was wrong. I have chosen to live a healthy life, and everything else has fallen into place around that choice.

We’d love to hear from those of you who have been successful at managing your weight while still being able to enjoy some of those foods that have a bad reputation…

Source: Uploaded by user via Monika on Pinterest

One of the things I am very conscious of in doing this work, is that the recommendations we make on this blog have the potential to have consequences far beyond then plates of our actual readers.

We are approaching 10,000 page reads a month, and our readers come from some pretty surprising places like India, Uzbekistan, and Trinidad. I am honored and flattered to know that the information we provide here is popular and useful to a variety of women. I do not want anyone to think that because they do not live where I do, that they cannot be healthy with PCOS. Or, that if they do not have the money for some Amazon-based supplement, they cannot be healthy with PCOS.

That being said, I am ever-mindful of the collective consequence of 1 in 5 women all rushing out to buy something because they read about it on this blog. That is why you never see me parrot, repeat, or retweet those lists of top ten healthy foods. While salmon, blueberries, and walnuts are all healthy, they are not available to many of our readers. And even to those who are, they are not the most environmentally friendly choices to make.

There simply are not enough wild salmon on the planet for it to be feasible for nutrition experts to be promoting the idea that this is the only fish that you should eat for omega-3 fatty acids. I LOVE blueberries, but I live in a hot climate where they do not grow, and the carbon footprint of the ones that make it to my local store…well…just not something I want to sign off on as my personal contribution to environmental disruption.

The other trend I see is a tendency to believe that if the food or supplement did not come from some exotic Amazon river tributary, or if it was not handpicked by an esoteric band of Mongolian monks, it can't have health value. We are sick in the Northern hemisphere, so our answer lies outside of our own environment, right?

Not quite.

One of the reasons we are sick, is that we have made our environment sick. We are all simply artifacts and consequences of our sick environment. Clean up the way we grow and produce food, reduce our carbon footprint, and we become healthy as a natural consequence of living responsibly.

Rather than jumping over foods in your own backyard, or buying into the idea that your answer is growing on some mountainside in Kenya, take a look at your immediate environment. How much fresh food are you eating? How much of it is locally grown? How much is seasonal?

Do you even know what foods are in season right now? I was floored when I used to do grocery store tours at Whole Foods several years ago. The people coming through those classes, in Tempe, AZ, and Venice, CA, were pretty well educated, and they viewed themselves as environmentally conscious.

But invariably, I would take them into the produce section and say,"Now tell me what's in season." And they would look at me like a deer in the headlights. In the middle of winter they would gravitate toward the blueberries shipped in from South America. And in the Arizona classes, they had no idea our perfectly healthy nuts are pecans and pistachios, not walnuts.

(Psssssttttt…by the way, what is in season is usually what's in the biggest bin at the lowest price, in case you were curious).

Back to blueberries. Turns out, one of the reasons blueberries are such an incredible powerhouse, is exactly why desert-friendly foods are also pretty incredible. If you would like to learn more, check out my blog post for Chow Locally this week. Take a look at what Mother Nature may have planted right in your own backyard before you get in a hurry to spend a lot of money on some food or supplement that comes from exotic, faraway land.

Much of what modern medicine tries to do, is OUTSMART Mother Nature. I believe the more logical, effective, and sustainable answer, especially for PCOS, is to LISTEN to Mother Nature. Her lessons are not the loudest ones, and they are not always on a prominent website, with a strong profit margin, but they are powerful, and they are valuable.

If you have questions about what might be lurking in your part of the world, pass them along! I'd love to learn along with you.

This past week I was watching The Biggest Loser. Not because I endorse their methods for weight loss, but because so many of you watch that show, it's almost required viewing for my job, to know what's being said and how to address it should it come up in our Facebook group.

I was appalled to watch one of the trainers, while a participant was doing situps, dropping a medicine ball on the poor guy's stomach. Nothing about that segment modeled respect for self or others, in my opinion, and it could have done serious damage to the participant. But that is what seems to happen in the world of weight loss. Once your weight exceeds what is deemed medically and culturally acceptable, the rest of the world seems to act as if they automatically have a license to decide how to"fix" you. The behaviors can range from looks into your grocery basket when you're shopping, suggestions that you're somehow not"doing enough" if your weight loss is not linear and predictable (as illustrated by the closeups of the shocked looks of the Biggest Loser trainers when someone does not lose, or…God forbid…gains weight, the assumption that if things are not going the way the trainer needs them to go in order to be the"good trainer"), that the participant must be the one to blame.

PCOS creates an even more frustrating scenario for physicians, dietitians, trainers, family members, everyone watching on as a woman decides she's going to lose weight. We've learned over the years that in many ways PCOS is counterintuitive. When you diet too strictly, weight goes on. When you exercise too much, weight goes on. It seems to be the"canary in the coalmine," so to speak, of imbalances in your life that need to be addressed. And, unfortunately, if you're a person of extremes, and you resort to fixing one extreme with another extreme, you're likely going to find yourself in a place where you plateau, gain weight, etc., with at least a half-dozen people looking on, with a million suggestions for"fixing" the problem.

Years ago I was a dietitian in an eating disorder treatment center. I was literally responsible for the weight gains of anorexics, the weight loss of women with binge eating disorder, and to be sure that bulimics who had been abusing laxatives did not gain too much weight during their withdrawal from those drugs.

Take the scenario I described above and multiply it by 36, which was the census of the treatment center. I absolutely hated Monday and Thursday mornings because those were staff meetings. I had to meet for three hours each morning with all of the therapists, physicians, etc., and discuss the progress of all of the women we were helping. If, God forbid, the weight of one person was not EXACTLY what I'd projected, I was put on the spot to (1) explain why and (2) come up with a remedy. Suggesting that healing from dietary imbalances of any kind was complex and that we were not in charge of all of the parts of the solution was not an option. Much of the rest of the week was spent with patients, family members, and insurance case managers, having the same conversations. In one case it was an attorney of a beauty queen who insisted she'd been promised prior to admission that she would not gain weight despite needing to withdraw from her box-a-day laxative habit and since her temporary fluid gain was in the double digits, I was to blame.

Can you tell how much I thought this job sucked?

The piece de resistance came during one stretch, when we had an overload of laxative abusers in the house (no pun intended) and my boss, desperate to be able to show good weight progress to insurance companies and keep her own"success" record high, asked me to come up with a solution. This was in the days before the Internet, and so I asked to be able to take a day in the local medical library researching intestinal health and dietary strategies. My request was denied. Instead, I was asked to create some type of"cocktail" that would"clean out or speed up the 'progress'" of the constipated individuals.

I looked at my boss and said,"I am a dietitian. I am not a plumber."

As you can guess, it was the beginning of the end of that job, which I actually eventually walked off of, because that particular situation was merely one of many I was expected to endorse that in good conscience I could not.

I learned humility in that job. An Ivy League degree and a master's degree plus stints at Stanford, Apple Computer, and the professional sports world, could not fix what was broken in these women. Only time, self-nurturing, and patience. Every single time I watch The Biggest Loser, I am reminded of that job. And how so many people I worked with based their own success on a patient's numbers recorded in a medical chart. Not on how well she was asserting herself, or sleeping, or challenging herself to eat salad dressing. It was all about the number. That it wasn't about the healers at all, but about empowering our patients to have the confidence to take care of themselves so well that they could fire us because they didn't need us anymore, was completely forgotten.

I guess I was inspired to write this piece because ever since I saw that medicine ball, I've been thinking how badly I wanted the poor guy on the floor to just stand up, tell the trainer to bite it, and walk off the ranch. Because he was being taught that somehow, because of the position he'd found himself in, needing to lose weight, he deserved to be punished and humiliated in the process of regaining his self-esteem. Yup, he had to be humiliated in order to develop self-esteem.

Don't ever let anyone, and I mean ANYONE — a medical professional, coach, or loved one, cause you to believe that they know better than you, what you need for yourself. Or that because your weight is not changing at a rate that THEY have determined is appropriate, that you're somehow doing something wrong. Or that what they have to say about your health supercedes what you believe about your health.

As Eleanor Roosevelt once said,"No one can take away your self-respect, unless you allow them to."

The voice of one who knows…is far more powerful than any study or statistic we pontificate about here.

This was posted as a comment, but I've pulled it out to make a separate post because of its potential to motivate others who pass through our blog.

Thank you for taking the time to write!

I used to live my life in a perpetual brain fog. I just thought I was a space cadet and that was it.

I was diagnosed with PCOS at 17 and have gone on to do many things I set my mind to (have a masters in music) but the fog was always there.

What fixed the fog for me was what you always preach-NUTRITION!

I switched my diet to a more Paleo approach, cutting out all refined carbohydrates and getting the majority of my carbs from fruit and vegetables. Basing every meal on a good protein source was another huge shift for me. I've been eating this way for two years and the brain fog is gone. I get so much more done in a day and I can make it through late night rehearsals with a focus I never knew I had. When I slip up and have bread or a cookie, I feel the brain fog come on right away. It's not worth it and that makes it easy for me to continue eating clean!

Why is it that we have a need to wear on our sleeves how little we sleep, as if it's a badge of honor?

People who don't sleep are physically hurting themselves in ways that diet and exercise can't always repair.

The large and famous nurses' study showed that women working night shifts had a greater incidence of breast cancer than those working during the day.

Accumulating research is connecting poor sleep with weight gain, insulin resistance, and diabetes.

What is it about sleep that is so crucial?

Melatonin. It's our body's most powerful antioxidant. It literally acts like a scrubbing bubble when we sleep, scouring that inflammatory damage from a day's worth of living, thinking, and stressing, leaving the brain and nervous system clean and ready to go the next day.

When we cut ourselves short on sleep, we don't give melatonin a chance to do its job.

We age ourselves much more quickly than we do when sleep is something we prioritize.

First thing you need to do to change things, is change your attitude about sleep.

You are not a better person because you deprive yourself of it.

You can't make up for what you lost during the week, over the weekend. Once it's lost, it's lost.

You may not be able to overcome the damaging effects of too little sleep with better eating and more exercise. In fact, it may be harder to achieve this while sleep deprived, because you are more likely to accelerate aging even more with the caffeine and sugar you're using to get through the day.

Want to get your weight under control? Reduce your cancer risk? Improve your fertility?

Sleep. It's that simple.

I finished up my nutrition education during the height of cholesterol phobia/low fat mania. The message we were taught to teach about egg yolks dies hard.

Several years ago colleague Susan Kleiner, Ph.D., R.D., shared in a presentation I attended, that there really isn't hard research that shows, without a doubt, that eating egg yolks increases cholesterol. Neither is there really evidence to show that removing egg yolks from your diet reduces cholesterol. Other dietary choices, such as the ones we teach on this blog, are far more effective at normalizing your blood lipid tests.

Eggs are such a cheap, easy source of protein. Scrambling them with vegetables is my favorite way to clean out my vegetable bin.

If you're trying to increase and maintain your vitamin D levels, keep in mind that it is found in egg yolks. And the levels of vitamin D in egg yolks, according to the US Agricultural Research Service, is higher than thought. Each large standard egg contains 41 IU.

If you're still not convinced and questioning, consider that this same analysis showed that the amount of cholesterol in eggs is 14% lower than previously reported, 185 milligrams per egg.

Egg yolks also contain choline, the precursor for acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter involved in memory. It's not easy to find in food…if brain fog and memory are problems your PCOS has brought you, perhaps rethinking your relationship with egg yolks could be helpful.

I'm not sure what the change is, perhaps farmers have been changing the composition of poultry feed in response to the dietary concerns of their customers.

Whatever it is, I'm hoping the new results in a few more egg yolks showing up on diet diaries I review here in the office!

Secondary infertility is the inability to conceive or carry a pregnancy to term after successfully and naturally conceiving one or more children.

Secondary infertility also appears to often be a condition with a significant nutritional cause…and a fairly easy solution.

A developing fetus has no way of obtaining the important omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, that it needs for adequate brain and nervous system development, except from its mother.

And what do we do to pregnant moms? We tell them to not eat the main source of these fatty acids, fish.

Even though the FDA warning limits their advised restrictions to four fish (shark, tilefish, king mackerel, and swordfish), studies have shown that women tend to limit ALL fish consumption while pregnant.

So as their firstborn develops, mom's omega-3 stores gradually dwindle. It's highly likely, given the stressful demands of new motherhood and the continued concern that fish may not be safe while nursing, that omega-3 intake continues to be inadequate.

And since fertility is dependent on adequate omega-3's as well, it makes sense that what it required to conceive and carry the first baby to term, may be exactly what's keeping baby #2 from happening.

We've been pretty successful at inCYST with this type of infertility. It's about getting over the fear of eating fish when you're pregnant.

At this point, pretty much every reputable fish oil on the market is molecularly distilled, meaning it's clean. Random tests of bottles of fish oil pulled off of pharmacy shelves rarely find mercury. Believe me, if they did, with the popularity of fish oil, it would be all over the news.

You can't just take fish oil and expect your problems to be solved. It is important to combine this with a healthy diet free of trans fats, low in inflammatory fats (safflower, sunflower, soybean, corn, cottonseed), and rich in antioxidants.

When you DO dose the fish oil, you'll need to take more than the recommended dose on the bottle; about 1000 mg DHA. You will need to calculate the number of capsules your favorite brand provides.

This issue is actually one of the things that inspired me to create the inCYST Network. When I saw what the fish fear was potentially doing to mother, child, and unborn children, I decided it was time to step up and speak out.

I hope you find this information helpful!

The following blog post was written by a woman with PCOS. I know many of you feel this way. My response is at the bottom.

Dear (trainer) Kevin, Mamavation moms, Bookieboo, and (dietitian) Monika,

I did not work out today as intended. I meant to, I swear.

I’ve been doing great! Hour long walks to train for March for Babies, grueling sessions with pilates at home, and a killer interval-training session at the gym that actually made me cry when I hit muscle failure.

But see, when I woke up I had just enough time to get Buttercup to her first swim class. Which required me to keep her 33lbs afloat for 45 minutes. Which seriously, is probably why my arms are currently feeling like Jello.

If Jello hurts, that is.

But back to the crazy day and my really good excuse(s) for not getting to that 20-minute pilates DVD I promised I was going to do today. After swim class, I carried Buttercup’s sleeping self into bed where she enjoyed a 3.5 hour nap. During my break from motherhood, I meant to work out. I really was going to. But first I had to make the brownies. And the cupcakes. And the fudge. After I went to the grocery store, of course, for the crap on my list I meant to buy yesterday and we really don’t need to get into that whole mess.

So after I successfully escaped from the special hell that is a major grocery store the day before any holiday, I came home. And then I made the brownies. And the cupcakes. And the fudge.

Then it was dinner time. Then we had to clean up after dinner time.

And then it was time to dye the Easter eggs and carefully explain to Buttercup that no, the eggs we were dying do not contain baby birdies that will hatch after the Easter Bunny comes which makes me think tomorrow is really going to be interesting and I might need to start looking for a therapist for my daughter on Monday.

Okay, so that’s when I was going to work out. After all, things were done now, right? Right?

Almost.

Because see, we’re grilling tomorrow. A nice Easter lunch barbecue with rib-eye and veggie kabobs and a very real need for a filled propane tank. Which I didn’t realize we already had until I got to the Quickmart with the so-obviously-heavy-I-should-have-known-it-was-full-tank and the kind cashier gently informed me that I could have my $26 back.

And then I got home (again) and it was time to help my mom with the kitchen and then of course, at 8:30, I took Buttercup up to bed. Where, I should point out, she normally passes out after one book. I should also point out she normally does not take 3.5 hour naps.

And after two books and 65 renditions of “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” (thanks to the lyrics I had pulled up on my blackberry which I always keep in my bra) she finally did pass out. At 10 p.m.

So I sneaked out and headed downstairs, grateful to find The Husband had managed to nuke the dinner I forgot to mention I prepared for him and ate it all on his own! But I still had to do my nightly Mexican June Cleaver routine and prep his cooler with a sammich and goodies for his midnight shift. And after I finished that, I sat down to prep Buttercup’s Easter basket. The old one, mind you. Her new Elmo Bunny basket is the one going to church with us so we don’t have to worry about any hip-checking incidents like last year during the Easter egg hunt.

And then I kissed The Husband good-bye and, like, totally planned on working out then.

But the kitchen floor was gross. So mom vacuumed. And then I steam mopped. And then we both realized that the fridge was nasty inside and our guests will think we’re cave people and we had no room for all the goodies I baked, so we emptied, cleaned, and rearranged.

And then I looked at the clock and thought I was a fucking lunatic if I was even going to attempt to do pilates at 12:30 a.m. when I had church the next day.

So I sat down to blog instead.

Sincerely,

Pauline

Dear Pauline,

I think you had a marvelous day. You spent it with Buttercup. You spent it with your mother. You spent it with your husband. And it was filled with love.

You created memories. You took the time to record those memories so they would never be forgotten.

And, for the record, just because lifting a 33 pound child in her swim class enough times to turn your arms to jello isn't something you see in Jillian Michaels' videos, doesn't mean you didn't get exercise.

Give yourself credit for being surrounded with all that Easter goodie stuff without eating any of it.

And enjoy the grilled food you made for Easter dinner!

There's more than enough guilt in the world to go around. Any trainer who would fault you for the day you prioritized above doesn't understand something very important. If you eat perfectly and work out perfectly, but your life is emotionally and spiritually empty, it doesn't really matter. Fill your spiritual and emotional cups, and somehow the rest will usually fall into place. Life is not about being perfect, it is about being fulfilled.

Keep the blog posts coming. You always put a smile on my face.

Sincerely,

Monika

Pauline's blog can be found at www.aspiringmama.com

One of the most frequent questions women have when advised to use fish oil is whether or not they should be concerned about the mercury content. I routinely hear from clients I've worked with that they feel comfortable taking fish oil to conceive, but then once they're pregnant they become concerned about mercury and stop the supplements.

The FDA has done such a great job of warning us about the potential problems with just four kinds of fish--shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish--that Americans in general have decreased consumption of ALL fish.

With regard to fish oil supplements, the truth is, most brands of fish oil are molecularly distilled, meaning they go through a very strict purification process to remove mercury. Random tests from bottles pulled off of regular drugstore shelves have consistently shown that for the most part…fish oil supplements are safe.

Yet people continue to question the safety of fish and fish oil because they fear the mercury.

Here's an interesting twist in that logic.

Earlier this year, two studies looked at the mercury content of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a ubiquitous and controversial sweetening agent. One study discovered that nine of twenty samples of HFCS contained measurable amounts of mercury. These researchers concluded, "With respect to total mercury exposure, it may be necessary to account for this source of mercury in the diet of children and sensitive populations." I would consider women of childbearing age, including those reading this blog, to be an especially sensitive population.

A second study conducted by the Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy found in foods they analyzed in the fall of 2008, nearly 1 of 3 of the 55 foods they sampled contained measurable amounts of mercury. The finding was most common in foods containing HFCS.

So if you're using mercury concerns as an excuse to avoid eating fish…and you're looking for ways to justify keeping sweet stuff in your diet…you may want to consider your perspective. It's the fish that's likely clean and the sweets that may be dirty.

Dufault R, LeBlanc B, Schnoll R, Cornett C, Schweitzer L, Wallinga D, Hightower J, Patrick L, Lukiw WJ. Mercury from chlor-alkali plants: measured concentrations in food product sugar. Environ Health. 2009 Jan 26;8:2.

http://www.iatp.org/iatp/press.cfm?refID=105025

I've been managing a pretty major remodeling project over the last six weeks. I have an 1100 square foot condo that needed new flooring. It had been decided that tile would be the option. However, when the tile guys got there, they realized that the older building my second floor condo is in, had sunk enough so that the difference between high and low spots was too significant to make tile the option. They had to work out a complicated mix of carpet and tile to do the job.

Here is the"before" photo. That table is office #2 from where many of these blog posts are created.

Here is the"after" photo. Well…for about 24 hours. Once the grout dried I immediately had to start moving everything out of the bedrooms and closets onto tiled areas so carpeting could commence.

The carpeting job ended 2 weeks ago, but this is pretty much what my dining room looks like today. Not because I'm lazy or sloppy, but because I decided that since I rarely have occasion to go through every single item I own and decide if it needs to stay or go, I was going to use this as an opportunity to perform a massive"feng shui".

I have a lot of papers that were stored in boxes, artifacts from the days before the Internet when us intellectual types kept every piece of printed material we had in case we needed it. Now we don't need to do that, because most information is somewhere in the cloud.

It's a hard habit to break though, hanging on to things in case you need them. I'm big on not wasting things or unnecessarily using landfill space, so I'm trying to make a good decision about every single piece of paper, trinket, electrical cord. My personality type is such that I can only do this for a short time before I lose focus and start throwing things in boxes to get the task overwith. So I promised myself this time I would not do that. I only ask myself to make 10"what should I do with this?" decisions a day. As you can see by the massive size of this pile (and it's only half of the pile!), being so diligent means I'm going to live with the pile for awhile.

The first week it felt like I was never going to get there. But the day before Christmas I looked and saw that one whole corner of the dining room was free of clutter. And the office, where most of this stuff had been stuffed into the closet and started to overflow into the room…was so clean and crisp that I was far more productive working in there than I ever had been. All that clutter was interfering with my focus and concentration.

The process reminds me somewhat of the old advice for eating an elephant: one bite at a time.

And as with gardening, it made me think of many of you. How you might be anxious to lose weight and how frustrating it can be to see it come off slowly, some days seemingly not at all. But how if you stick with it, one day you look up and the progress is just THERE. If you lose focus and start going at the task in a disorganized fashion, you'll get rid of the chaos at the superficial level by shoving it in the emotional closet, but that mess is still there…and as with my closets…has a tendency to grow and multiply on its own if left untended.

It doesn't matter how small your effort is today. If it's an effort and it moves you even a tiny fraction of a millimeter in the direction you'd like to go, it will pay off.

I'll post updates when both the office and the dining room are truly back in action!

It's not something many PCOS practitioners think to ask during an assessment…but it's one of my first. That is, how well you sleep. Most women with PCOS are exhausted. They can't sleep at night and it's all they want to do all day. We did an informal survey a few years ago that surprised the sleep specialists I showed it to. Fully 85% of women with PCOS reported insomnia, sleepwalking, night eating, fibromyalgia, and/or early morning waking. We didn't even include obstructive sleep apnea, the sleep disorder most often associated with PCOS. What's going on? Melatonin, the chemical we tend to associate with making us sleepy, is also an extremely powerful antioxidant. It makes you sleepy so you slow down and rest while it does its main job…scrubbing up and cleaning up oxidative damage that has happened during the day. If you're under a lot of oxidative stress, it tends to want to kick in at odd hours…during the day. It's your brain's way of telling you that you need to slow things down, because it's gotten behind on the cleaning chores. When you are sleepy during the day, you are likely under stress. And if you have used up your melatonin stores during the day in an attempt to clean up the junk, there may not be enough to make you sleepy enough to fall asleep. What's a PCOS girl to do? --work on stress management --make sure your sleep hygiene practices are impeccable: turn off all digital equipment after 7:30 pm, keep the shades drawn to protect yourself from outdoor light, turn the alarm clock to face the wall so the light will not interfere with your hormones. Yes, you can take melatonin, and I've recommended it from time to time. But it's a bandaid solution. Your true answer is to start pulling yourself back into balance.

Practically ever client I have ever had, has come to me with some kind of expectation that the secret to their weight problem/eating disorder/heart disease lies in a magical set of recipes filed away on my computer. If I don't hand them recipes, they feel as though I have failed them.

It's not that I don't mind creating recipes, in fact, it is one of my very favorite things to do! But I feel as if I give you too much structure in what I encourage you to do, you miss the point of cooking. And I feed the delusion that some specific set of instructions on a piece of paper is going to magically fix your problem.

So today I thought I would share what my morning has been like. I hope you will see, that the best kitchen inspirations come from the most surprising places. You often have to put the recipes away in order to see them.

My culinary challenge this week for Chow Locally is developing recipes for mustard greens. My big barrier to this challenge is that try I as I might, and trust me, I have done so many, many times, I just can't get into mustard greens. They are pretty bitter to my palate. But since we have about 125 customers wanting to know what to do with the mustard greens we gave them, and since mustard greens grow pretty well in Phoenix, I got the feeling the Universe decided to tell me it was time to cut the mustard (Ha! Couldn't resist!)

I didn't snap my fingers on this one. I am pretty sure by now, in fact, I have read every single blog post about mustard greens, looking for ideas that sounded like they might work for a wide spectrum of taste buds. When I woke up this morning, needed to try a recipe, I had no idea what I was going to do.

In typical procrastinator's style, I decided to clean my kitchen instead. And…there sat inspiration #1: a couple of inches of stale beer that I was not able to finish last night. It was tasty, a local brewery's White Chocolate Ale, and I didn't want to throw it away. I realized since it was sweet I could get away with less sugar, which I had been thinking of using.

On the way but not totally there, I decided to procrastinate even more by working on my pile of samples from Expo West. This is what my living room floor looks like for about 2 weeks after I get home!

Out from the pile popped my collection of samples from a great family-owned business over in Orange County, Matt's Munchies. They have created a fun variety of healthy fruit leathers. The ginger spice, which is really a ginger and cinnamon-laced mango leather, became ingredient #3.

I poured the beer in a skillet, heated it up to dissolve the mango leather, and then put my chopped mustard greens in to let them braise. I cooked them all the way down until the sugars started to caramelize.

OK, I lied, it did use recipes in this process…but not in the way you are thinking. Because I'd read literally hundreds of recipes in search of inspiration, I noticed that a lot of Indian recipes for greens incorporate just a touch of brown sugar. So I knew if my concoction had something sweet in it, it would caramelize and offset the bitterness that make mustard greens challenging for me.
I am not going to give you any more instructions than this, and you won't get a nutrition analysis. You all know the ingredients here are good ones, and to give you more of a script defeats the purpose of my nudging you to free yourselves of overly rigid behavior in the kitchen. I promise you, your very favorite foods will be the ones where you left the script and started having some fun!

Finally, I threw in just a touch of sweetened coconut flakes for color and texture.