The Hormone Reset Diet (27 page)

• If you have five or more of these symptoms,
you are very likely intolerant of or allergic to dairy. The inflammation caused by dairy might be your roadblock to the size you want to be. Please read this chapter so you can reduce or eliminate your symptoms and lose weight. You may also want to consider getting yourself tested, as described later in this chapter (page 191).

•
If you have fewer than five of these symptoms or are unsure,
I recommend following this reset and seeing how your body reacts to three days without dairy.

Humans’ love affair with dairy starts at birth. A mother’s breast milk is clearly known as the healthiest form of food for her child.

We’re designed for human breast milk, but cow’s milk? The jury
is still out. In fact, humans are the only mammals that drink milk as adults. Time to rethink it? Most people—approximately 75 percent, including most people of African, Native American, and Asian descent—can’t make lactase, the enzyme that breaks down dairy, as they get older and therefore can’t tolerate dairy. Northern Europeans fare somewhat better and are more likely to keep making lactase as they age.

The bottom line is that dairy (along with gluten) is one of most common hidden food sensitivities. Dairy sensitivity is the result of long-term yet subtle violence against your gut. Maybe you took antibiotics for acne as a kid, or perhaps you take ibuprofen for a nagging injury. Quite feasibly, stress has been your constant companion. Or maybe you like to golf and have been exposed to endocrine-disrupting pesticides on the golf course. These small insults add up to create leaky gut. This syndrome makes food particles, such as the proteins in dairy, trigger an alarm in the immune system of your gut. Now you have a food sensitivity and low-grade but pathological inflammation—and it can make you fat, insulin resistant, congested, tired, foggy, depressed, asthmatic, and cranky.

If you think you are the only one cursed with a future devoid of ice cream sundaes and cheese plates, think again. Dairy allergies, reduced enzymes to break down lactose (the main sugar in milk), and sensitivities are on the rise.
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As you can see in the figure on the opposite page, half of adults who are sensitive to gluten are also sensitive to dairy!

Inflammation is your body’s natural defense system: when bad guys invade, your white blood cells kick into gear and send chemicals called cytokines to protect you. But when inflammation shifts into overdrive and gets imbalanced, it can become the cause of many other diseases, including cancer, diabetes, dementia, and (as I’ve already mentioned) obesity. Any inflammation lasting longer than seventy-two hours is a problem and will start to poison you and your health.

Unfortunately, women are more vulnerable to inflammation than men, so we need to be even more careful—that is, women of all ages have more robust immune responses to invaders (bugs, vaccines, and food) than men, which leads to higher rates in women of autoimmunity, thyroid issues, infections, arthritis, oral health problems, and other conditions.
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The reasons are not fully understood but may be linked to our lower levels of testosterone and higher levels of estrogen.
³

As Ann Wigmore, author, holistic health advocate, and nutritionist, says, “The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.” Inflammation is poison when it doesn’t resolve, like a smoldering fire in your gut that makes you leaky, bloated, and gassy, and it causes trouble when you want to lose weight. Fortunately, it doesn’t always require a lengthy doctor visit to reclaim your health and weight; it just takes kicking inflammation to the curb by changing what you put on your fork. With my Dairy Free reset, you are giving yourself the chance to put out that fire and start anew.

One of the key reasons we’re inflamed, feel off, and can’t lose weight is that we drive every day on the acid superhighway. What’s the major contributor to your high acid level?
Dairy.
Fasten your seatbelts, because I’ve got good news: you can fix that problem very easily by creating a proper pH, which reflects acid–alkaline balance in your own body.

Here’s the rundown: The pH scale runs from 0 to 14. Neutral pH is 7. A pH greater than 7 is alkaline, while a pH lower than 7 is acidic. “An understanding of how to keep your blood in an alkaline range is important for maintaining good health,” says Kris Carr,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Crazy Sexy Kitchen.
Kris works with a large community of raving fans to balance their pH levels for optimum health and harmony. (You can find her at http://kriscarr.com.)

Your body doesn’t just magically find pH balance; it works extremely hard to create it so that your biochemistry works optimally. When you make poor lifestyle choices or are burdened by toxins, your body has to work even harder. For good health, your body needs to be slightly alkaline. Carr explains that the Standard American Diet, which includes coffee, dairy, sugar, fried foods, soda, artificial sweeteners,
and simple carbs, sabotages your chance at pH balance. “Most folks are bathing their cells in an acid bath by making poor choices three or more times per day,” explains Kris. “A menu like this keeps the body in panic mode all day, every day.” This takes a toll on the body, especially on the digestive system, liver, and kidneys. “Inflammation, allergies, arthritis, skin problems, mood disorders, depression, constipation, bowel issues, stress (physical and mental), and chronic disease love this diet,” she says.

Kris’s recommendation? Banish an acidic diet that is high in animal products (dairy included), processed carbs, refined sugar, booze, cigarettes, and coffee. Replace this with a more alkaline diet, consisting of leafy greens, wheatgrass, veggies, sprouts, avocados, green smoothies, and soups to flood your body with chlorophyll, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and oxygen. “Look at your plate. Peek in your glass,” says Carr. “What direction are you moving in? Burger, fries, diet cola, muffin, candy bar? Acid bath! Green drinks, salads, sprouts, wheatgrass? Alkaline super disco! Your goal is to make energy deposits instead of constant withdrawals.”
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Enough said. Be like Kris and dump the dairy. Your pH will thank you.

If you feel burpy, belchy, or bloated after you eat dairy, you may have a sensitivity to casein, a protein in milk. Casein is a leading cause of inflammation among my clients who are overweight or obese. With this protein, we have yet another case of mistaken identity. Remember the problem of gluten and how it punches holes in your gut (the leaky gut) and how your immune system fights back with its weapon of choice, the antibody? It’s the same sad story here with dairy. Your sensitivity to dairy occurs when your immune system falsely identifies the dairy protein as harmful and inappropriately fires off allergic antibodies for protection. This interaction triggers
a cascade of body chemicals that set off the fire throughout your body and make you hang on to weight. These chemicals include histamine, which causes symptoms that may include

• a swelling of the lips, mouth, tongue, face, or throat;

• skin reactions, such as hives, a rash, or red, itchy skin; or

• a stuffy or runny nose, sinusitis, sneezing, itchy eyes, coughing, or wheezing.

The most serious reaction to a milk allergy can involve anaphylaxis, a potentially life-threatening reaction that can occur rapidly. Food allergies (including casein in milk) are believed to be the leading cause of anaphylaxis outside the hospital setting. People who have asthma in addition to a serious food allergy to a protein, such as casein, are at greater risk for worse outcomes if they suffer an exposure and develop an anaphylactic reaction. Symptoms such as swelling inside your mouth, chest pain, hives, or difficulty breathing within minutes of consuming a milk product may mean you are experiencing an anaphylactic reaction and need emergency medical attention. Most of us won’t experience this scary phenomenon. But some of us will just feel bad, fat, and bloated after eating dairy.

Remember Little Miss Muffet, eating her curds and whey? Ever wonder what the heck that whey stuff was? Whey is the “serum” of milk—the liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained. It’s used to make processed foods, such as bread, crackers, and pastry, as well as cheeses, such as ricotta. In modern times, Little Miss Muffet has to be careful not to eat too much whey, or she might get renamed Little Miss Muffin Top. While whey intolerance may not be as severe as casein, it’s still common.

If milk gives you the sniffles and a gurgling tummy, it might not be due to the casein. You may have a whey allergy or sensitivity, another type of immune overreaction caused by dairy. In the Western diet, dairy protein consists of mostly casein and approximately 20 percent whey. Some folks experience double trouble and are allergic to both casein and whey. Overall, whey protein leads to fewer allergies than casein. But for those who have a reaction to milk, whey may be the secret culprit because it is often dried into a powder and added to foods and supplements that you wouldn’t expect to contain dairy.

Can you be allergic to casein but not whey, or vice versa? Yes. The symptoms of both allergies are similar. I find that some of my patients, especially those who’ve been drinking smoothies made with whey protein powder for a while, develop a whey allergy. How do you know? The two Rs:
remove
and then
reintroduce.
For one week, stop eating anything with whey in the ingredients. See how you feel. For the second week, stop eating all dairy. See how you feel and compare that feeling with the first week. This is a great way to cultivate your body awareness!

Another potential reason you may have symptoms when you consume dairy is lactose intolerance. You may have friends who drink Lactaid milk or take enzymes before eating a dairy product. That’s because they are lactose intolerant, which means they lack sufficient enzymes to digest the main sugar in milk, called lactose.

A lactose intolerance is usually milder than a casein or whey intolerance, which as we’ve learned can cause hives and difficulty breathing in its most severe form. Still, it’s a major nuisance: when you can’t fully digest the lactose in dairy products, you get a civil
war in your small intestine. The battlefield in your belly often appears later in life, with symptoms including gurgling, bloating, discomfort, gas, diarrhea, or gastroesophageal reflux (GERD). How do you know if you’ve got it? Ask your health professional for one of the following tests:
⁵

By now, you won’t be surprised to learn that there is a genetic tendency to have lactose intolerance. Unfortunately, a dairy intolerance—whether it’s casein, whey, or lactose—may mean that you are at risk for other health problems too. Drinking your beloved milk may increase your chance of diabetes, although debate continues.
⁶
And research shows that a cow’s milk allergy increases your risk of mental health problems, like schizophrenia.
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So, if you do suffer from a milk allergy, be aware of these correlations and pay attention to changes in your health.