Trim Healthy Mama Plan (32 page)

W
hatever you put onto your skin becomes a part of you. Your skin is like a sponge. Think about it. Nicotine patches, birth control patches, and hormonal replacement creams are all actual medications that are absorbed through the skin and make huge impacts on the body.

Our skin is also our largest detox organ. It is meant to be a place where toxins come out, not go in. Therefore skin creams and
deodorants can be a dangerous onslaught of toxic chemicals, even if they say “natural” on the bottle.

We suggest you watch out for the following harmful ingredients in most hair and skin products:

It takes years for some of these chemicals to break down once they are absorbed through your skin. Deodorants are applied right next to your lymph system under your arm. It makes no sense for you (or your teenage son or daughter) to put a bunch of toxins there day after day. Antiperspirants contain aluminum—a known carcinogen. Why would we do this to ourselves?

Not to be stinky, most of us answer.

Let's find a better way.

If you're doing the Trim Healthy Mama Plan, you're already on your way to healthier
skin. Preventing blood-sugar spikes is more important than any skin cream you will purchase. Dr. Nicholas Perricone, the world-renowned dermatologist, talks about how inflammation is the destroyer of skin. In his book
Ageless Face, Ageless Mind
, he explains how sugar and high-glycemic carbohydrates cause rapid inflammation on a cellular level. These elevated blood-sugar levels cause chemical reactions that create free radicals and attack the lipid bilayer membranes of our cells. The result is premature aging of our skin. This phenomenon is called glycation, and it causes irreversible cross links between adjoining
collagen molecules, which translates as deep wrinkles and loss of skin elasticity.

The collagen-rich foods and supplements we encourage in your diet are known skin healers and beautifiers. As we age, our bodies make less collagen, which is what gives our skin firmness; the loss of collagen results in sagging and wrinkles.
Gelatin-rich natural foods such as stock or meats with skin and bones, or the supplements we recommend, go into your bloodstream and from there to your connective tissues, including your skin. They stimulate additional collagen production, which results in a reduction of lines and wrinkles. That's not just a nice little hopeful theory. A study published in 2009 in the
Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry
journal examined the effects of eating gelatin on skin that was repeatedly exposed to ultraviolet light. The mice in the study were separated into three groups. Mice exposed to the light without the gelatin had a 53 percent average decrease in the collagen content of their skin, compared with the mice that received no ultraviolet light exposure at all. Incredibly, the mice that were fed gelatin and exposed to the light not only had no collagen decrease at all, but they also actually had an average collagen increase of 17 percent! So let's dig into this wonder food for our skin's sake!

Now you know how to eat for healthy toned skin, but what to use on it? How about adopting the idea that whatever you put on your skin should not be anything that you would not actually be able to eat? Sure, that is a lofty goal; but we can all take baby steps toward that even if we don't perfectly make it. The fewer toxins we absorb, the greater our chance for vibrant health! Even many so-called “natural” products contain chemicals
such as parabens. Just because something is packaged with earthy-looking colors and you buy it in a health store does not mean it is free of toxins. You certainly don't have to purchase only our Trim Healthy products, but do seek out skin-care items (and makeup if possible) that are free from the list we mentioned on
this page
. In sticking with the “keep it sane” approach we want you to take, don't start obsessing over the purity of everything you put on your skin. A whole bunch of worry and fretting is going to be worse for you than putting on a moisturizer with less-than-stellar ingredients. Just try to make wiser, more informed choices each time you purchase your personal products.

We have another crazy story to share. Five years ago Kathleen, a close friend of ours who lives nearby, handed us a cream that she had concocted in her kitchen. She'd infused all the herbs herself into a base of soothing aloe vera and pure essential oils. We opened the jar and it smelled like oranges! All she said was, “Try it for a week then tell me what you think—it's actually edible!”

Since that day, we have not used any other skin care cream. That was Kathleen's first product, which she named
Orange Silk Hydrating Cream. It hydrates and soothes our skin like nothing else, is perfect under makeup, and performed miracles on many of our family members' problem skin areas. It healed a stubborn skin condition on Pearl's husband's hands that nothing else worked on, and Serene was finally happy about a cream she could use that fit her purist standards. We were so thrilled with it we couldn't help but talk about it in our first book. We were not associated with the cream in any financial way. We simply wholeheartedly believed in such a pure product and wanted other people to experience it as well.

We told Kath to put up a website in case she got any orders and so she did, not really believing much would happen with it. Well, in the same way that the Trim Healthy Mama word spread organically from Mama to Mama, Kath's creams began to catch on. She began to receive testimonials from people using her cream. It was like nothing they'd ever used and, despite the purity, was actually affordable! Her customers became devotedly loyal. Many of their very troublesome skin conditions resolved and they told their friends. Kath soon had trouble keeping up with the orders. Her husband had to quit his job and come help her full time!

In early 2014 Kath did the same thing to us but this time with a deodorant she had created that was actually healthful rather than harmful. “Try it for a week and tell me what you think.”

We'd both tried many
deodorants from health food stores, but let's just say they hadn't been that successful for us. The old underarm sniff check was rarely successful. Serene, determined not to put aluminum anywhere near her underarms, had even tried making her own homemade deodorant concoctions. They were extremely messy and hit-or-miss in effectiveness. We didn't have high hopes for Kath's experiment due to this history, and we told her so.

Incredibly, it worked, on both of us. We all put our heads together to come up with a name for it—the
Hippie Stick. Kath launched it to her customers, and the response was overwhelming. She and her husband realized they had grown out of their home business when they found themselves having to make Hippie Sticks until three in the morning and then get up again at six to start again.

We were thrilled and excited when Kath and her husband suggested we partner up and create a full line of natural skin-care products.

The Trim Healthy Naturals skin and personal care line was born!

We couldn't be prouder and more excited to bring you these products. We still have Kath working hard behind the scenes, but this time she is using her herbal wizardry to come up with new amazing products rather than packaging Hippie Sticks until she's blurry-eyed. One of our greatest loves is brainstorming with her about how to come up with more truly natural products. We've worked with her on a pure shampoo for well over a year now, and we're very excited to see the idea soon to become a reality. Trim Healthy Makeup? No, we don't have that ready yet; but you'd better believe we're working on it!

If you have dry, aging skin, give the original
Orange Silk Hydrating Cream a go for both face and body. The coconut cream is a popular choice for oily skin. You can go to
www.trimhealthymama.com
and then click on Trim Healthy Naturals to find these original products plus many more skin-care and personal items we have had the honor of being able to have a voice in creating with her.

Y
ou've almost made it to the end of the book, and if we've taught you anything, we hope you have it seared into your mind that it is only this balance, this decision to keep a sane approach, that enables a long-term, happy, and healthy journey of Food Freedom.

Our whole mission, the passion that drives us to take the time away from our busy, large families to write this book, is there right on the front cover: “KEEP IT SIMPLE! KEEP IT SANE!” We refuse to get trapped in the depressing fetters of food nitpicking. It is too easy to go from this nitpicking to a state of food looniness. At this point you might as well just live in a bubble, because you start believing so many foods are “bad, bad, bad” and, what do you know, latest research says there are even scary, evil villains in regular whole foods that are out to GET YA!

We don't want to bash other diets. We certainly don't want to hold ourselves up as the girls who know all there is to know about nutrition. We will be ever learning, studying, and, hopefully, gaining more precious treasures of knowledge as we go on. As we mentioned in the beginning of the book, each type of diet has gems of truth that we can all learn from. We can offer respect to other approaches but we need to draw a line in the sand when it comes to damaging extremes.

So we are going to come full circle now. We started this book mentioning all the conflicting and confusing information out there regarding diet and we must end it returning to that maze for just a little while before we step back out into the sunshine with you again.

We are often asked about new diet theories and what we think about certain foods that are suddenly slapped with a “bad” label. We want to take this opportunity to officially
share our thoughts on some current
diet trends. We don't want you to get caught up in unstable tangents, fads, and rabbit trails that will too easily rob your joy. You're going to have to protect your balance. It's getting even crazier out there, Mamas! Your Food Freedom approach will continually be threatened by a host of new diet theories, new studies, and new scares. We want to arm you with some knowledge to help you keep it sane going forward.

In order to see if some of these latest extremes can stand up to good old common sense and simple science, we need to take a closer look at them, shake them up a little, and see what's left standing. But no hurt feelings if you skip this part. Fair warning: We are going to get study heavy on you for a bit. If you don't care to delve deeper here with us, we'll meet you on the last page of the book to say good-bye. You have all the info you need for a successful Trim Healthy Mama journey right now. But if you are one who opens your e-mail inbox every morning to be ever more concerned and confused about what you read regarding food and diet, follow along here with us and save your sane.

As you know, we don't have a bunch of degrees after our name and we doubt we'd blow anyone away on an IQ test. But it doesn't take a bunch of degrees to see when the big picture is lost in the overanalyzing. Man's wisdom gets so befuddling and confusing sometimes. This is depicted in the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. The designers and builders of the tower were the smartest in the land but they were so filled with their own intellect and aspirations to reach the sky that they were hampered by their own hands. They ended up babbling a bunch of nonsense and the tower was never finished.

The mind of mere man is puny compared with the one who created the universe with the power of His voice alone. His perfect nutritional balance is outlined in the blueprint He gave us. The Bible is sound and doesn't change with the trends and times. Even if you don't read the Bible or care to believe in an intelligent Creator, you still must agree that the Bible doesn't go through the cyclic changes of dietary fads that we circle through these days. It does not vilify whole food groups but embraces them all as gifts. Man is often in error: Things that are known to be true for decades are found to be false with one new study hitting the media waves. There has to be something more grounding we can lean on than dogmas, theories, and studies.

If you haven't already heard about some of these latest diet theories we're going to mention here, we doubt it will be long before you do. Sensationalist food judging sites are all the rage. The new trendy food words on the Internet are
beware
and
avoid.
Surf the Web and you'll be swamped with top-tens for everything that has recently been found to be bad. Which food's turn is it this week to be nasty and dangerous?

Have you heard of PUFAs? These are the natural
polyunsaturated fatty acids that are abundant in superfoods like eggs and salmon. PUFAs are not the result of pollution or any manmade, toxic sludge. God created salmon to contain liberal amount of these fatty acids. We are not kidding when we say there are some new diet theories gaining much popularity teaching that they are bad for us. Extraordinarily healthy foods like salmon are being labeled as harmful and dieters are being warned to avoid them. Did we mention things are getting crazy?

Lectins and
phytates are two more new bad kids on the block. They occur naturally in many foods but have tainted the good name of grains, beans, and nuts to the point that it will be a miracle if their reputation ever recovers.

The stone throwing does not stop there. Fermented or aged foods such as cheeses, vinegars, and cultured milks (kefir, for example) have historically been the cornerstone foods of civilizations but are recently disdained for the fact that they contain free glutamic acid. MSG is the synthesized form of this acid but many believe the free form is just as harmful even though it is found naturally in many whole foods, such as ripe tomatoes. Funny that human breast milk has some of the highest levels of free glutamic acid of all foods. Would God really create a milk to nourish babies full of the harms of MSG?

Our beloved
bone stock (used for centuries) and gelatinous supplements are scorned by some because they will make foods taste too good and we'll overeat! What? Yep.

Coconut oil made from dried coconut called copra is another new “nasty” no-no. Oh, and we'd better not leave out the mycotoxins in coffee; they're apparently damaging to humans, except for a certain brand that costs almost as much as your phone bill each month to obtain. Aflatoxins on peanuts…the list of baddies go on and on.

Notice something? We are not talking about foods laden with synthetic chemical toxins here. This is the stuff that is grown in the soil, caught in the ocean, or raised on a farm and has nourished people for millennia. If you buy in to all the new “evils” of foods it
would not be possible to sit down and enjoy a healthy whole-foods meal without worrying about diseases forming after every swallowed morsel.

A few phytates in a handful of almonds that you didn't soak for twelve hours, a few lectins in a Mediterranean tomato and eggplant salad, a teensy bit of aflatoxin in a spread of peanut butter, some PUFAs in a delicious wild-caught piece of salmon…our amazing bodies are well equipped to deal with these naturally formed properties that are on or in real food. Unless you have true sensitivities or allergies to these foods, it doesn't make sense to stress about them.

We are not meant to live in a sterile bubble, our food in little morsels of perfection with every particle censored. We were made to live in a world of bacteria and funguses. Just put your fingernails under a microscope and let's get real. Yes, we're a bit heated up on this subject; but somebody needs to stand up against the joy robbers.

In fact, it is our belief that this obsessive worry and food perfectionism may threaten to weaken the human race! Not just because of the worry, which might be a huge factor, but because consuming a little bit of those so-called nasties like PUFAs in wild salmon is actually meant to happen. It's only common sense that nasties are in foods because we are meant to ingest them, that they are somehow part of the perfect symbiotic symphony of balance that makes up a truly “divine masterpiece” diet.

Remember, a little bit of bacteria strengthens the
immune system and a bit of dirt to play in makes for a healthier child. Science has finally realized using antibacterial soap too often is actually harmful for us. Last decade everybody was carrying hand sanitizer around until studies showed oversanitizing yourself in this manner harms your immune system. We need a little of everything natural to balance out the whole picture, certain germs included.

Sure, there are things to sensibly avoid but they are a simple list of easy villains to recognize (aside from allergens and religious beliefs). It's best to avoid refined sugar, refined grains, GMOs when possible, BPA canned goods when possible, fake chemicalized cheese, soda, drugs, cigarettes, too much alcohol, most preservatives and chemicals, yak mucus, paint thinners, dinosaur urine…okay, now we're being silly. But common sense tells us what to avoid. You don't need a list from us.

You might have a couple more (or fewer) items on your own list, but none of us need food-scare sensationalists warning us against God-given foods like beans, grains, nuts, meat, dairy, butter, eggs, coffee, tea, or cooked foods. Some of us thrive on these
foods, some of us find we have to pull back on certain types. We're all different. But this doesn't mean they must be out for everyone and slapped with a BAD label. Enough is enough!

Did you know that poor old meat is on the chopping block again, meaning chop it right out of your diet? In the 1980s and '90s meat was considered by many to be a baddie because of its
saturated fat. Science vindicated meat when it became known that hydrogenated vegetable fats messed with by man's fancy tweaks were the real problem when it comes to heart disease. Just when meat was enjoying a brief reprieve, its name had to get sullied once again, and this time, not just red meat but all of it—fish, venison, turkey, and chicken. They are all in the naughty seat again.

What is so bad about these animal foods now, you ask? It is the amino acid
methionine that meat (and other animal products) contains. Yep, a naturally occurring innocent little amino acid that is essential to the body and actually helps to keep us full of vigor is recently considered to be a vicious exterminator programmed to snuff out the human race!

All this kerfuffle about methionine is due to some studies done on mice. A 2005 study published in
Aging Cell
backed up what other studies had reflected: Mice with the lowest levels of methionine lived the longest. Certain amino acids, including methionine, help to raise IGF-1 levels. IGF-1 stands for insulin-like growth factor and it measures growth hormone in the body. Growth hormone itself is associated with youthfulness, supple skin, more energy, better muscle tone, and more. But the mice in these research studies that had lower levels of IGF-1 and subsequently lower levels of methionine lived longer than the ones with higher IGF-1. Time for a new diet theory: Suppress methionine in the body, and ban all meat!

Not so fast. First things first. Feeding a bunch of box-bound mice some kibble with mega doses of methionine that may have been derived synthetically is very different from a normal real-world lifestyle. Without all the other antioxidants and counterbalancing nutrients that come with a balanced whole-foods diet, this situation is not a fair assessment of the way methionine or IGF-1s work.

While it is true that mice deprived of IGF-1 lived longer, it is also true that they quickly lost their vigor and health. In the studies, the mice became more feeble and crippled and showed senility. Abundant IGF-1 sustains youth, and it impedes atrophy and aging by enhancing neuronal and muscle growth and repair.

The theory behind suppressing methionine is that by decreasing IGF-1 levels you increase the voice of stress-resistance genes and therefore increase your lifespan. In simple terms, your body recognizes that it is extremely stressed with low levels of IGF-1 and awakens your stress-resistance genes to start screaming: NO! I WANT TO LIVE! I AM GOING TO FIGHT THIS STRESSFUL LACK OF IGF-1.

This restriction does work to lengthen life in rodents but not because methionine or IGF-1 are scoundrels. It works because they are greatly needed for a flourishing body and their lack in your body initiates a defensive battle for survival.

Levels of IGF-1 are highest in the young and agile, and we age in correlation to its diminishing levels. Exercise induces IGF-1 release. Does this mean we should also avoid all exercise in order to live longer? Of course not. We were made to move. We don't have to bust a gut to be fit, but we sure shouldn't shun exercise altogether. Don't call us crazy, people are actually teaching this doctine! Avoiding most forms of exercise except only the concentric contractions of some lifting moves is part of a new protocol preached from those who shy away from IGF-1. Yes folks, it is getting this crazy! When just the simple act of eating and moving gets this deeply discombobulated, someone needs to shout “Stop!”

Another theory close to this one goes like this: The wonderful fulfillment of being nourished with sufficient food and calories releases IGF-1. Starving decreases it. So if we can starve ourselves more or miserably reduce the size of our plate, we can release those stress-resistance genes and live longer. Yep, the fountain of youth is
starvation, people!!!

We might live a painful, gloomy existence plagued with early aging on all levels, but hey, we might add another five years to our life. This thinking has more followers than you can imagine and is the foundation behind intermittent fasting and severe calorie restriction and other similar plans.

The commonsense key to all of this is once again BALANCE. Let's include the other balancing nutrients, hormones, or mechanisms that work synergistically alongside methionine to bring healthy wholeness. If methionine and IGF-1 cause the sun to rise, then let's find the harmonizing counterbalance that makes it set. There are hormones that help sustain a pregnancy and others that stimulate birth.
Insulin causes our fat cells to store, and
glucagon causes our fat cells to release. This is the reason we don't eat a bunch of carbs alone: If we did, insulin would go into a fat-storing rampage. So do we throw our hands up and shove insulin into the baddie sack? No, it is a crucial hormone for our survival! By adding protein to our meals, glucagon is released and fat has a harder time sticking to our thighs. In a similar, sane manner, let's get methionine under control without ditching foods containing it altogether.