Diet trends come and go every year, with the majority of them promising instant weight loss in a short period of time. Even though losing weight is good for you if you are overweight or obese, and will definitely help with your health management, a sudden, massive weight loss could potentially be dangerous. To avoid this sudden change, adapting a whole foods diet, in your lifestyle could be useful. This would help you with gradual long term weight loss which is safe and better for your general health and well-being.
A whole foods diet is a diet that removes all types of processed foods, which means it incorporates those foods that have no added ingredients like sugar, salt, additives, or colorants. With a whole foods diet you would also remove all dairy products, grains, alcohol, and legumes at first, and focus on consuming organic lean protein, organic vegetables, seafood, and organic fruit.
The reason behind eliminating legumes, grains, and dairy products is that many people are intolerant to some of these foods. By this method of elimination, in your whole foods diet, you would be able to understand if you are sensitive to any of these foods like gluten, legumes or dairy, and if this is the cause of some of your health problems. You can then slowly start reintroducing these back into your diet, each time assessing to see whether your health is once again compromised in some way.
Processed foods are those foods that have undergone a chemical process. Generally speaking, these foods are high in sugar or corn syrup. These are empty calories that have no nutrient quality while being high in energy. High consumption of these foods may lead to insulin resistance, high cholesterol, obesity, and liver issues.
Processed foods are also engineered to suit our taste buds. This implies that one would perhaps unintentionally end up overeating on these foods. The processed foods industry sees much competition with regards to sales, thus different companies do everything in their power to meet their sales targets. Much of what goes into these foods, however, could be detrimental to your health.
The artificial ingredients in processed food, some of which are not even on the labels, are there for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons is to increase the shelf life, making them more appealing to the eye by adding colorants and making them tastier by adding certain chemicals and texturants. Furthermore, they have no nutritional value. Many people become addicted to these foods and may increase their intake of them because of their dopamine-releasing properties. Your brain gets addicted to the ‘feel-good’ effect.
Also, these foods have high levels of refined carbohydrates that quickly break down in your digestive system, resulting in spikes in blood sugar levels that may impact insulin levels. This may result in increased food cravings. Given that this diet is the opposite of whole foods diet, it is low in fiber and therefore not conducive to digestive health. This diet is also high in ‘bad’ fat content which might lead to oxidation and inflammation in the digestive system.
A whole foods diet is a diet that is the closest to their natural form as possible. However, this does not mean that you should not cook these foods, even though foods in their raw state typically retains most of their nutrients unlike when it is cooked.
There is a large body of evidence that suggests that your diet is directly linked to your chances of developing a chronic health condition. A whole foods diet, in essence, is one that supports a diet based on whole foods like fruits, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, and legumes with a limited intake of red meat, dairy products, and foods and beverages with added sugars. Please note that fruit juices do not make the list, because firstly, it has a high sugar content and secondly, it loses all the fiber and nutrients of the fruit, that are beneficial.
Being high in fiber, vitamins, and minerals, a whole foods diet is associated with lower blood pressure, a lower incidence of high cholesterol, reduced risk of diabetes, and better weight management. These are important factors with regards to lowering your risk of heart disease.
Conversely, a diet that is high in sugar, low in fiber and antioxidants, and good fats like omega-3 fatty acids, may activate your immune system. The most likely reason for this is that it may lead to excessive production of what is known as proinflammatory cytokines. This may result in a decreased production of anti-inflammatory cytokines.
If you follow a whole foods diet, your body is not only getting the benefit of numerous vitamins, minerals, and minerals needed for optimal health but antioxidants as well. This helps fight inflammation, a condition associated with metabolic syndrome.
Besides playing a role in managing your weight, blood sugar levels, insulin issues, cholesterol levels, and blood pressure issues, a whole foods diet could potentially help with fertility issues as well. This is because the whole foods diet has been found to improve fertility and hormone balance. Some of the advantages of whole foods diet are:
Inflammation is either a physical or psychological response to a stressor as part of your NeuroEndoMetabolic (NEM) stress response which acts on chemical messengers governed by your Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis. While there are many causes of chronic inflammation, mild, chronic allergies, food sensitivities, a diet high in processed foods, sugar, and fat is one of the main causes for inflammation.
An illness or an injury, e.g. spraining your ankle, will spark an inflammatory response. Here, symptoms may include pain, swelling and reddening in the area. Essentially, it is an indication that your body is in the process of repairing itself. This mechanism eliminates the free radicals that cause oxidative stress in your body.
Because the injury is seen as a threat, large amounts of cortisol are also produced in response to the ‘threat’ to your body as perceived by the HPA axis. This extra cortisol is produced by the adrenal glands.
An unhealthy diet of processed food may prolong this inflammatory response and this would lead to a continuous release of cortisol. This elevated cortisol level stays constant or even increases, which means the inflammatory response remains elevated as well. In the end, your body’s inflammatory response becomes one of the initiators of adrenal fatigue because, even though the cortisol production is supposed to help you manage your inflammatory response, cortisol in excess becomes a trigger for adrenal fatigue. The higher your inflammatory response, the body releases more cortisol and the more cortisol your body produces, the higher is your inflammatory response. It becomes a never-ending cycle of cause and effect which has a negative, cascading effect on your health. Your inflammatory response may be responsible for a number of chronic conditions like heart disease, Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome, vascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, and even certain cancers, to name but a few.
Today’s lifestyle is based on time. Our working conditions are such that we very often find ourselves looking for time to spend with our families and friends. We often tell ourselves we just do not have the time to cook from scratch, so we opt for easy to prepare processed foods or takeout. But at the end of the day does your family’s health not come first? We should, perhaps, rethink our lifestyle choices and look into following the whole foods diet like our previous generations used to have. If you are thinking about switching your diet and you are suffering from AFS, it is best to find an AFS specialist who can help guide you through your recovery to find the best time for your diet change. Navigating the recovery process on your own can potentially make your AFS worse.
© Copyright 2020 Michael Lam, M.D. All Rights Reserved.
There are many factors involved in the inflammatory process. While it is a natural response to stress, what we eat does indeed contribute. It has been found that a whole foods diet, may support an anti-inflammatory response. This diet can provide adrenal support and help manage inflammation.
