Fawn - Just the Basics

[Dreamchaser]

Originally Posted by fawn

We use Stainless Steel from the restaurant supply.
I also have a cast iron griddle.

We have one medium sized teflon pan that I replace frequently for scrambled eggs only infrequently and on a very low temp. And I cringe when I use it! But I can't imagine using anything else for fluffly butter scrambled eggs!

Thanks fawn!

[Off My Duff]

Thank you for a wonderful thread, and all the knowledge being shared here!

I have a question...It's always confusing to me on what to do to prevent (or even reverse) heart disease. All the low carb research I've done makes sense--but then when you read material by Dean Ornish or John McDougall, it makes you wonder.

I tend to think whole foods/low carb would be best, but then you see photos of arteries from Dean Ornish, and the ones he shows of the low carber's arteries are BAD, severely diseased. I'm sure this could be propaganda for his point of view, but even so, it sure is hard to tell who is right when it comes to heart disease.

Any thoughts for those of us who don't want to fall prey to the "heart disease industry"?

[Nik]

Becky:
After reading just one online interview with Ornish, I think he's a biased, vegetarian, low-fat drone. I do believe there are plenty of facts that should encourage us to eat complex carbohydrates and "good" fats over bad. After I drop about fifty more pounds, I'll look into them. Personally, I see this whole Atkins adventure as a transition from a SAD to a healthier, more intuitive way of eating. We'll all get there, but I'm going to get there faster through low carb than anyone will using low fat. Then, I'll add healthy, wholesome, whole carbs to my already improved diet.

I like this thread, too. I hate to be one of those people who just asks question after question, not willing to do the research myself. However, I like being able to learn from someone else's experience and end up being more informed. Just like your comment encouraged me to check out diet industry experts who I wouldn't normally "google." Thanks for the point of interest!

[fawn]

What Causes Heart Disease?

This is a good article. I have another I will try to find that was written by the gentleman who runs my holistic nutrition school. Now even in the holistic sector they realize that the research points to inflammation in the body caused by refined foods, alcohol and smoking is the highest contributing factor of heart disease.....not saturated fats.

becky, get the book "know your fats" by Mary Enig. She's a 30 year lipid researchist. A true scientist. I think that is key in my decision. The girl is IN THE LAB!

Thank you McDougall for your PROMOTION of heart disease and interruption of a healthy endocrine system. I owned a deli in the 90's and I had McDougall dieters all the time.

Actually, it was an East Coast style sub shop
the orders? skip the olive oil dressing (100% olive oil is what I used btw) mustard on a white roll with peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions and no avocado!
They were faithful McDougaller's......so sad when I think back to it now....they did this because he had heart disease....now I was ignorant at the time as to the importance of protein and fat but somehow I knew this wasn't right.

Again, Becky in my humble opinion one cannot live a healthful life on an abundance of conventional hormone/antibiotic laden dirty meat....I'm sorry I explain it this way but it's how I see it.....
but saturated fat (organic grass fed) is not bad for the body rather satiating, nourishing and necessary to healthy cellular regeneration and at the end of the day this is one of the most important factors in aging gracefully without degenerative disease and/or modern disease.

I have a personal interest in this as my husbands father and grandfather died in their 40's of heart disease. We have lowered DH's blood pressure with low carb and we eat a high saturated fat diet. He has never been healthier.

Remember too that Dr. Robert Atkins was a cardioligist.

[Off My Duff]

Thanks for that article, Fawn. I hadn't seen that one before. Nik, I don't know if you read it or not, but there's a very interesting portion about Dean Ornish's study at the bottom. It certainly makes one wonder...

There is always SO much to learn about health, isn't there?

[MountainGirl]

Originally Posted by Dreamchaser

Dr. Mercola says...

Just a word about what Mercola says. Check his sources, check his studies and do your own independent research before you follow Mercola's advice, especially if it's unsupported by unbiased, independent studies.

[hummingbird11]

Wow. This is a keeper. Thanks to everyone for the wealth of info posted here.

[hummingbird11]

Bump!

re: Inflammation - I do not eat any refined sugar nor processed foods nor meats w/ nitrites/nitrates (since 3/08) but I still struggle with internal inflammation (due to cancer/ascites/lymphedema)

Fawn, is Aloe Vera juice good for inflammation?

Also, I'm helping a good friend get started on Atkins (organic-style), she wants to lose 100 lbs and struggles w/ joint pain. Any suggestions?

[cenicienta]

Lots of good information here. My son has autism, so a lot of what has mentioned already hits home with me. The probiotics that we use for our son are of the high powered kind. The brand we use is called VSL #3. Our Defeat Autism Now doc recommended it to us. Other parents I know order from Custom Probiotics and also use Florajen 3.

Just throwing some other stuff out there. If you have yeast issues, there is a beneficial yeast that actually kills off the bad yeast including Candida Albicans. It is called Saccharromyces Boulardii. We have had some success with this. If you have yeast die off symptoms, like a headache etc. you can take activated charcoal to help with this. Just take it two hours after you take your supplements as it sort of mops up everything.

For constipation in our house, magnesium citrate is a keeper. It can take you from constipated to diarrhea if you are not careful. Magnesium glycinate is also good.

If digestion is a problem for you, I highly recommend giving TriEnza from Houston Enzymes a try. This is especially good if you are on a gluten free/casein free diet and have an inadvertant slip up. Pepcid also works with a dietary infraction.

For viruses - Olive Leaf Extract (OLE) is great for some people. Also a product called Virastop (I swear by this one). If you take Virastop at the beginning of a cold, it will either get rid of the cold completley or lessen the duration of the cold and its symptoms.

For bacterial issues, grapefruit seed extract is great.

I recently found out about a product called LDM-100. Supposedly it is good for killing viruses and flushing all of the yucky bacterial/fungal stuff out of the body. I know parents who have used this on themselves and their autistic children and have never felt better and they have actually seen speech gains with their kids. I have some sitting in my cabinet now. I want to use it with my son, but need to wait a little bit since we have just started a new medication in which if a rash appears, then we must discontinue the medication. LDM-100 is well known for producing rashes, but they are actually healing rashes because the toxins are coming out through the skin. For this, epsom salt baths are great.

Hope this helps you guys.

[fawn]

Originally Posted by hummingbird11

Bump!

re: Inflammation - I do not eat any refined sugar nor processed foods nor meats w/ nitrites/nitrates (since 3/08) but I still struggle with internal inflammation (due to cancer/ascites/lymphedema)

Fawn, is Aloe Vera juice good for inflammation?

Also, I'm helping a good friend get started on Atkins (organic-style), she wants to lose 100 lbs and struggles w/ joint pain. Any suggestions?

Hey HB!
Aloe is very good for inflammation for you and good for the joint pain. Chemo really does a number on the digestive tract. Have you supplemented with a high quality pro-biotic? A combo as well of fish oil, bromelain and msm is a great natural source for your friend for joint pain. How about probio

[hummingbird11]

Hi Fawn! I've missed ya!

Yes, I'm taking Jarro-Dophilus enhanced probiotic system (1 capsule each morning on empty stomach).

I will try this (too) and pass along to my friend - THANKS!
(A combo as well of fish oil, bromelain and msm is a great natural source for your friend for joint pain.)

Should she take probiotics too?

Did you see the note about an LCF Dinner in SF on July 20th??

I really hope you can make it!!??

Originally Posted by fawn

Hey HB!
Aloe is very good for inflammation for you and good for the joint pain. Chemo really does a number on the digestive tract. Have you supplemented with a high quality pro-biotic? A combo as well of fish oil, bromelain and msm is a great natural source for your friend for joint pain. How about probio

[fawn]

Yes on the probiotics for you friend HB......

I sure hope I can make it. It's such a great buyers market here right now and between my Real Estate and nutrition, I'm so busy!

I have a job interview tomorrow! I applied for the position of Executive Director of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals. I know, pretty gutsy considering I'm a newbie at this but once receiving my resume, they called me for an interview! I'll let you know!

[Maggy]

Fawn,
That's great and good luck on the interview!! I can't think of anyone more perfect for the job

[hummingbird11]

WOW!! How did it go?? Even the fact they wanted to interview you (for EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR??) is a huge success! And if they land you, well then lucky them and happy you!

I totally understand re: 7/20. Life is muy crazy for me too. We'll play it by ear...congrats on all the RE biz!

Originally Posted by fawn

Yes on the probiotics for you friend HB......

I sure hope I can make it. It's such a great buyers market here right now and between my Real Estate and nutrition, I'm so busy!

I have a job interview tomorrow! I applied for the position of Executive Director of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals. I know, pretty gutsy considering I'm a newbie at this but once receiving my resume, they called me for an interview! I'll let you know!

[fawn]

thank you girls...it's tomorrow at 1:30. If I don't qualify, I'm not worried.....I have so much going on and building my business really is priority but this is a telecommute position and I have room in my home office to manage this but it would be so very cool on my resume. As well, it will get me close to resources like Jonny Bowden, Liz Lipski, JJ Virgin......the list goes on of those I admire.
I'll keep you posted!

[SummerSue]

This is a great thread - I have been wondering myself how to make the many changes I feel I need to make, and more so, how to bring my reluctant family along! Baby steps, I believe, will do it, but where to start? Right now I'm working on changing the dependence on white flour and white rice, and hoping by end of summer to have found a few new grains they will like and eat (middle school and elementary school boys and skeptical low carbing hubby). I already choose mostly high quality proteins, and am lucky enough to have several grocery options for clean chicken, turkey, and even found some pork (no bacon yet though). Beef is another matter. All the high quality meat is grain fed, but has no antibiotics, etc. It's kind of scary when the expensive meat is labelled "100% grain fed" - what are the other animals eating?

I'm ordering Nourishing Traditions this week, and am pouring over several Low GI books, cookbooks, and stevia substitution books, although I'm quite disappointed in most of them. I've pulled out my 1984 American Wholefoods Cuisine cookbook from back in the day of vegetarianism, since it has many whole grain recipes I can try for my boys. Anyone have any good sources of recipes for eating this way? For myself, I still have 30 lbs I'd like to get rid of forever (finally), but would like to move the rest of the family into whole foods, so I can eat some (SOME) when I'm down to a more ideal weight.

Fawn and Nancy, and anyone else who makes this their way of life - how did you make these changes? Was it while you were losing weight or after maintenance? How does your family react to all the changes?

And - thanks for sharing all your wisdom. Your generosity will really help others!

[Nik]

Fawn:
Any word on the job? How exciting for you!

One thing that has been worrying me and that I haven't heard you weigh in about is WATER! What do you drink? Do you think bottled is best? Do you have a filter that you recommend? I've been looking for a whole house filter, but it's impossible to find one that filters out fluoride. I feel that fluoride should not be part of our diet. What's your opinion?

TIA!

[Su11]

Summer Sue,

I'm not sure about how to make all of the changes for a family. I think that maybe finding NEW dishes that incorporate whole grains might be a good route. That way they aren't expecting their familiar comfort food and finding a different taste. Family food is very much so rooted deeply into ourselves.

One idea that is actually from my dad is to try whole grain as a cereal. You soak wheat berries or millet or some other grain like that (health food store... don't buy seed grain it has been treated chemically very often and is very dangerous to ingest this way).

Soak the grain overnight like you would beans and then boil to tender. He likes it with milk and sugar, just like a breakfast cereal. It is good and I like it a lot. I use the millet as a rice type dish.

No, not low-carb, but very much so whole grain. The kids might like seeing how people used to do 'cereal' and take it up just because it is so different.

But keep giving them new taste experiences and they may slowly start to prefer some of the whole food options. It takes quite a while to re-educate our tastes away from processed foods.

[SummerSue]

Thanks Su11.

My kids have grown up watching mom and dad low carb, so our family meals won't be what I remember as a kid! But, when I do add carbs for them, I'm afraid I've let them have potatoes and white rice kind of thing. Their bread is mostly pumpernickel and rye (but from the grocery store - white flour being the first ingredient), except for bagels, which is like crack cocaine when you've lived in NY your whole life. And, of course, any baking we've done is with white flour.

So, while their friends munch down on complete crap during lunch - handfuls of cookies, Lucky Charms, and all kinds of snack sized bags of whatever, mine stick with healthier choices......but still, there is room for improvement. Everything I read about families seems to go back to the babies and toddler stages - like it's too late if you don't do it then!

SO, I guess I'll just try to use the summer to interest them in trying some new recipes that they like that we can slowly grow into.

But keep giving them new taste experiences and they may slowly start to prefer some of the whole food options. It takes quite a while to re-educate our tastes away from processed foods.

This is good advice - Thanks!


I did buy some whole grain type stuff for breakfast cereal - I'll give your "recipe" a try!

[Su11]

Originally Posted by SummerSue

Thanks Su11.

My kids have grown up watching mom and dad low carb, so our family meals won't be what I remember as a kid! But, when I do add carbs for them, I'm afraid I've let them have potatoes and white rice kind of thing. Their bread is mostly pumpernickel and rye (but from the grocery store - white flour being the first ingredient), except for bagels, which is like crack cocaine when you've lived in NY your whole life. And, of course, any baking we've done is with white flour.

So, while their friends munch down on complete crap during lunch - handfuls of cookies, Lucky Charms, and all kinds of snack sized bags of whatever, mine stick with healthier choices......but still, there is room for improvement. Everything I read about families seems to go back to the babies and toddler stages - like it's too late if you don't do it then!

SO, I guess I'll just try to use the summer to interest them in trying some new recipes that they like that we can slowly grow into. This is good advice - Thanks!


I did buy some whole grain type stuff for breakfast cereal - I'll give your "recipe" a try!

Dad will be thrilled!

[fawn]

how did you make these changes? Was it while you were losing weight or after maintenance? How does your family react to all the changes?

Mine was a long journey.....Never did I make 2 different dinners though. I sort of forced my family to eat low carb through my cooking at night but during the day they made their own choices. Most of them loved the new high fat dinners because we had been a low fat family for so long. Let me tell you, when I brought butter back into the house they went nuts! My son thought he was in heaven with steak dipped in butter! The more I learned from the bulletin boards and reading others blogs, I learned how to start eliminating things that I never ever knew were detrimental to our health. Then when I started school, it just all came together for me. I've always sort of been a naturalist at heart but low fat drove my decisions. It's a learning process for sure!

Fawn:
Any word on the job? How exciting for you!

One thing that has been worrying me and that I haven't heard you weigh in about is WATER! What do you drink? Do you think bottled is best? Do you have a filter that you recommend? I've been looking for a whole house filter, but it's impossible to find one that filters out fluoride. I feel that fluoride should not be part of our diet. What's your opinion?

TIA!

I had the interview and it went well. I'll know more in a couple of weeks. There are a lot of applicants so I'm anticipating someone will have more experience than I. But I'm always up for challenging myself so we shall see!
water......it's just about the only thing I drink! I too am in the market for a total house filtration system. I have DH on that project. Our county is currently considering adding fluoride to our water. In fact, one of the supervisors said he doesn't want to hear any of the nonsense any longer. He's hearing from dentists about the increase in tooth carries in small children. Um yeah dude, it has nothing to do with the fact that soda pop is sold in schools. Our issue here is we have a great deal of migrant workers because of our wine/agricultural production and unfortunately, in the hispanic community here, health is a real issue....particularly that of dental health. When baby bottles are marketed by Dr. Pepper, Coca Cola and the like.....it says that it's ok to put soda in a bottle and I've seen it numerous times. sad sad sad......
so, I'll keep you posted as to my decision! Currently though, I have a Pur water filter on my kitchen faucet. I don't care to purchase bottled water because of my environmental convictions so I use glass jars. A little bulky at times but I make it work.

[hummingbird11]

Fawn, I've read that you never counted carbs or calories. Yet you have been so successful at what so many of us are striving to do.

Do you have a journal anywhere that chronicles the trials & tribulations (& daily menu's) of your amazing weight loss?

MTIA,
HB

[fawn]

Originally Posted by hummingbird11

Fawn, I've read that you never counted carbs or calories. Yet you have been so successful at what so many of us are striving to do.

Do you have a journal anywhere that chronicles the trials & tribulations (& daily menu's) of your amazing weight loss?

MTIA,
HB

Unfortunately, I do not and so wish I did because it's been a long long journey for me. I spent countless hours searching the internet for low carb frankenfoods.....I would sit down and eat 6-8 low carb candy bars in one night......Eat 4-8oz. of cream cheese with splenda and cocoa....drank on weekends when I started, made low carb root beer floats, carbquick pancakes, until finally, about 3 years ago realized that I had problems with food. As I transitioned to organic, no chemicals, only splenda (then stopped and my heart palpatations went away) I finally started to really feel good. It took me almost 5 years to get to goal. This is why I'm such a crusader now.....I wish I knew then what I know now.....my journey would have been so much easier....I never climbed the carb ladder correctly either. Would I change things? I'm not sure....time has been lost but the lesson I received about my body was so valuable........Quite honestly, had I read the Diet Cure before Atkins, I probably would have been more succesful. bless Atkins, that's where I started and I so loved it but I learned so much about myself from Julia Ross' book.......
I never counted, I still don't count but now, I know my body better than ever before, know what I can tolerate and what nourishes me........

My advice now? Do it with whole foods, do it by the book (Atkins, EFGT or The Diet Cure) and do it as NATURALLY as you possibly can.