The Virgin Diet (4 page)

How do you do that? First, protect your good bacteria. You might want to take
probiotics,
which are supplements that support bacterial growth. If you take antibiotics, which kill a lot of good bacteria while
they’re gunning for the bad, upgrade probiotics from “good idea” to “absolutely essential.” You always want to follow any antibiotic treatment with a round of probiotics.

HOW TO REDUCE INFLAMMATION

• Make an oil change.
  Instead of consuming inflammatory fats from processed foods, corn, dairy and eggs, switch to anti-inflammatory fats from wild fish, raw nuts and seeds and olive oil. And make sure to avoid
  damaged fats:
  any oil that is rancid, refined or hydrogenated (trans fats). Damaged fats change the structure of your cell walls and make you more resistant to the messages from your hormones, including insulin and leptin, setting you up to put on weight and keep it on.
  
• Get rid of the sugar, artificial sweeteners and high-glycemic foods.
  There’s a good reason sugar is on your top 7 high-FI list: sweet and starchy foods raise blood sugar, which raises insulin, which leads to inflammation. We’ll learn more about high-glycemic foods in
  Chapter 7
  , and we’ll also find out why artificial sweeteners are so bad for you—and your weight.
  
• No more GMOs!
  Genetically modified organisms
  (GMOs) are wrong in so many ways. They can disrupt your healthy
  gut flora
  (intestinal bacteria), trigger an immune response and create inflammation. The vast majority of soy and corn available in the United States is genetically modified, as we’ll learn in
  Chapters 4
  and
  6
  .
  
• Let go of the top 7 high-FI foods.
  The top 7 high-FI foods are the ones most likely to cause an adverse reaction. Some, like dairy, gluten, soy, eggs, peanuts and corn, can trigger an immune response that leads to inflammation. Others, like sugar and artificial sweeteners, wreak havoc with your blood sugar. Either way, inflammation is the result.
  

You can further support your good bacteria with
prebiotics,
which is soluble fiber that feeds your gut flora (for example, garlic, onions, asparagus and dandelion greens), and with fermented foods, such as pickled ginger, kimchee and sauerkraut. We also need good gut bacteria to make vitamin K, which is important for immune function.

THE ENEMIES OF GOOD DIGESTION

• Speed eating
  
• Drinking excess fluids with meals
  
• Eating when stressed
  
• Environmental toxins
  
• Antibiotics
  
• Pain medications
  
• Birth control pills
  
• Antacids (Yes, antacids! They lower the stomach acid you need to digest food.)
  
• Foreign travel
  
• High-FI foods
  
• A high-sugar diet
  
• Artificial sweeteners, colorings and flavorings
  
• Stress
  

There is yet another piece to the inflammation–immune system puzzle: eating high-FI foods can contribute to a condition known as
leaky gut syndrome.

Leaky gut is pretty much what it sounds like. The cells of your intestinal lining (your gut) are supposed to be pressed up tightly against one another, creating tight junctions. These junctions keep partially digested food securely inside your intestines, where it belongs.

Sometimes, though, your intestinal lining is compromised, allowing particles of partly digested food to leak out into your bloodstream. Other problematic stuff can get out, too, including microbes, waste and toxins.

When these substances enter your bloodstream, your body treats them as foreign invaders and responds accordingly. Your immune system releases a cascade of inflammatory chemicals designed to neutralize the threat, which can also wreak havoc on your intestinal lining. As a result, you have a much harder time absorbing nutrients, which might even cause you to eat more—and gain weight.

Eventually, the poorly digested food combines with IgG antibodies to form large bodies known as immune complexes. These circulate through the bloodstream until they are deposited in various tissues, where they create localized inflammation. That’s how you end up with the symptoms we’ve talked about—the rashes, joint pain, headache, fatigue and skin eruptions.

All of these symptoms together can make you feel as though your whole body is breaking down. You might be tempted to think that this is what happens naturally as you age. It isn’t. It’s what happens when you suffer from leaky gut. If you’ve been eating the wrong foods for years, you’ll probably develop more symptoms over time, as the problem worsens and symptoms build up.

Ironically, your body starts to crave the very foods that are making you sick. That’s because if you keep eating high-FI foods, your body keeps making antibodies to protect you from them. If you try to cut out a particular high-FI food, you have all these antibodies roaming around in search of it, ready to zap it with their special protective chemicals. These would-be protectors actually cause you to crave the food they’re longing to zap, setting you up for a vicious cycle of inflammation and weight gain.

Food intolerance can create leaky gut, but other factors can, too:

• Chronic inflammation
  
• Lactose intolerance
  
• Gluten as it triggers the release of the protein zonulin, which loosens the tight junctions in the gut
  
• A low-fiber, high sugar diet, which lowers your levels of stomach acid and contributes to leaky gut
  
• Poorly digested food, which may be caused by speed eating or stress eating
  
• A compromised immune system or an autoimmune condition, such as asthma, allergies or rheumatoid arthritis
  
• Overuse of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), such as aspirin and ibuprophen
  
• Infections, including viral, bacterial, yeast and parasitic
  
• Antibiotics
  
• Accutane (a form of vitamin A used to treat acne)
  
• Acid blockers
  
• Excessive alcohol consumption
  
• Cytotoxic drugs and radiation
  
• Exposure to heavy metals
  
• Exposure to molds
  
• Exposure to toxins
  
• GMOs, including such genetically modified foods as soy and corn, each of which averages about 90 percent of the U.S. crop
  

If you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome or irritable bowel disorder, you almost certainly have leaky gut as well.

The major cause of leaky gut, however—and the one that’s been most challenging for me personally—is stress because it causes your gut to become more permeable. So if you’ve been going through an especially tough time or if your life is chronically stressful, those extra pounds (and unpleasant symptoms) might well be caused by both leaky gut and inflammation.

Leaky gut isn’t just caused by food intolerance, it also
causes
food intolerance. As undigested food leaks through those open spaces in your gut, it makes its way into your bloodstream, and your immune system goes wild. Eventually, even foods that you were not previously sensitive to can become problem foods for you. So, we’re looking at a vicious cycle in which leaky gut, inflammation and food intolerance all reinforce one another.

Here’s the good news: if you remove the offending foods, your symptoms usually vanish, and the excess weight starts to come off. Once you heal your leaky gut, you might even become able to tolerate foods to which you are now sensitive. And the
really
good news is that you can heal leaky gut and perhaps also overcome at least some of your food intolerance through the Virgin Diet. When you drop the top 7 high-FI foods and load up on healing foods, you give your body a fresh, healing start. Meanwhile, you’ll drop up to 7 pounds in 7 days and look years younger. It’s a win–win.

MY TOP GUT-HEALING NUTRIENTS

Think you have leaky gut? Here are some of my favorite supplements and healing foods that you can try in addition to cutting out the 7 high-FI foods.

Healing Supplements

• Plant digestive enzymes,
  to support good digestion and reduce allergenic compounds (take 1 or 2 with each meal)
  
• Saccharomyces boulardii
  , to rebalance gut flora, prevent candida (yeast) overgrowth and support healthy gut immune function (250 to 500 milligrams per day)
  
• Berberine,
  to balance gut flora and blood sugar (1,000 to 2,000 milligrams per day)
  
• Aged garlic extract,
  an anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antifungal and antimicrobial powerhouse (1 to 3 caps per day)
  
• Glutamine,
  to heal leaky gut (1 to 10 grams per day, depending on severity)
  
• Ginger,
  an antioxidant that reduces inflammation and supports gut healing (30 to 50 milligrams per day)
  
• Quercetin,
  a natural antihistamine and antioxidant (100 milligrams per day)
  

Healing Foods

• Coconut milk,
  rich in yeast-killing caprylic acid
  
• Aloe juice,
  to raise secretory IgA
  
• Freshly ground flaxseed meal,
  which contains a gluey substance that soothes and heals the gut, as well as omega-3s to reduce inflammation
  
• Apples,
  which contain pectins to heal the gut
  
• Cold-water fish,
  to reduce inflammation
  
• Fresh garlic,
  to reduce inflammation and kill off bad bacteria
  
• Red onions,
  which are rich in quercetin
  
• Oregano leaves,
  which are antifungal
  

Much of the reason for our poor digestion is how we eat. We eat too fast. I tell people, “Be a slowpoke when you’re eating.” Put your fork down in between bites. You can improve your digestion by increasing your chewing. Chew more. If we eat with people who eat fast, we tend to pace ourselves with them, so eat with slow people.

Mindful eating is not just taking the time to chew. It is also being calm while you’re eating. Take time for your meals. Focus on what you’re eating and the company around you—and don’t eat while you’re doing something else that needs your focus, such as driving or working. Keep your mind on the food and the pleasure of sharing it. You’ll enjoy it more—and you’ll eat less.

THE ACID CONNECTION

Heartburn may be a sign that you’re not producing enough stomach acid, which can happen when you’re stressed out or agitated. It sounds paradoxical, but when you don’t have adequate stomach acid to break down your food, food sits in your stomach longer than it should, and the acids keep washing up against your esophagus—which could be the cause of your heartburn.

If you experience heartburn
and
have a history of ulcers, talk to your doctor. Otherwise, try taking a good, comprehensive enzyme that contains betaine hydrochloride (HCL) and see how you feel. If your heartburn dissipates, you have the answer.

I don’t want to gross you out, but now we need to talk about poops because they are a crucial part of digestion. Either diarrhea or constipation can indicate that you have problems digesting your food, which could ultimately affect your ability to lose weight.

Many people don’t realize that they are suffering from constipation. When I say, “constipation,” I want you to think three things:

1. You’re moving your bowels less than once a day.
   Ideally, you should be going twice a day.
   
2. You’re having to really struggle.
   Ideally, everything should come out nice and smooth.
   
3. You’re producing poops that are tiny or don’t easily come all the way out.
   That is not good for your digestive tract or your overall health.
   

What is a poop you can be proud of? It is a well-formed poop that you don’t have to struggle with. It comes out fully—it doesn’t stop halfway through and leave you stuck. Nor does it dive-bomb to the bottom of the bowl. It
sinks
to the bottom of the bowl. It doesn’t mark things up.

If you have an oily residue or slick slides, you are not absorbing your fat well. If you have rabbit pellets or you’re straining, you don’t have enough fiber. If you have floating poops, it could be from excessive gas, produced by an overgrowth of bad bacteria lurking in your intestines.

Now at this point, you might be wondering why I’m putting you through this kind of gross science lesson. The answer is, because if you don’t eliminate properly, you’ll be bloated and fat and setting yourself up for a permanent problem with both indigestion and obesity.

Okay, I’ll get a little more gross and ask you to picture what would happen to a poop that just sat in the toilet for a few days. Ewww, right? Well, do you want that toxic mess sitting inside you? No, you don’t, and that’s why elimination is so important. If you aren’t having poops you can be proud of, you are holding a toxic mess inside your body every single day. That uneliminated poop is releasing toxins that are reabsorbed into your body, leading to bad breath, hemorrhoids and acne, not to mention impaired digestion, inflammation and food intolerance. The net result is that you gain weight that you can’t lose, and you feel sluggish, tired and old before your time.

Those toxins are also putting a terrific strain on one of your primary detoxification organs: your liver. If you tax your liver with excess toxins, you could impair its ability to do its other critical functions, such as metabolize fat, which will ultimately make it more difficult for you to lose weight.

Maybe this isn’t the most pleasant topic, but it’s an important one—and what we focus on, we can improve. So at this point, I’d like to invite you to take my poop quiz.

JJ’S POOP QUIZ: SKIP IT AT YOUR PERIL!

Now, I know we don’t talk about poop much, and most of the time, there are very good reasons for that! The problem is, we have a broad range of what people think is normal—and a lot of that “normal” is really unhealthy. So this quiz is designed to help you identify what is actually normal—I mean, fully healthy—and what is not.