The 30-Day Diet Challenge

If you’ve read a few of my blog posts you’ve probably noticed that I lay a lot of blame on modern industrial foods for causing much of the health problems that Americans (and the industrialized world) suffer from today. I’ve even identified the seven most deadly foods that you should seriously consider avoiding.

But many who have removed the seven deadly foods will still suffer from lingering problems caused by unknown food sensitivities (or allergies). And not all food sensitivity reactions are obvious, such as coughing, hives, or a swollen throat. Some people may have one or more of the following symptoms when problematic foods are eaten:

• Abdominal pain
• Allergies
• Asthma
• Constipation
• Emotional instability
• Excess body fat
• Fatigue
• Headaches
• Heart burn
• High blood pressure
• High blood sugar
• Indigestion
• Irritability
• Mental depression
• Mental fog
• Migraines
• Muscle weakness
• Overweight
• Stomach Ulcers
• Underweight
• Weakened immune system

Often, people suffering from these symptoms will not associate them with food sensitivities. Instead, because they cannot find the true cause of their symptoms, they may just suffer in silence, using supplements or drugs to get some temporary relief. This prompted me to put together this 30-Day Diet Challenge.

The Challenge

The sole purpose of this diet challenge is to help you figure out which foods are hurting your body and causing health problems and which are not. Ultimately, you will be able to create your own personalized food sensitivity list.

It is entirely possible that once all problematic foods are removed, you can find complete relief from some or all of the symptoms listed above. (1) If after the challenge you continue to suffer from some of these symptoms, you will know that the issues are not caused by diet and can look at other possible causes.

This diet challenge is pretty simple (although not necessarily easy). For only 30 days, your diet will be EXTREMELY strict, avoiding all foods that are either evolutionarily new (e.g., wheat, milk) or are common allergens (e.g., soy, tree nuts, shell fish). The diet then targets any weak areas in your nutrient intake and gut health (which is a critical part of your digestive and immune systems).

Because this challenge is resetting your diet, there is absolutely no cheating during the challenge and all rules must be followed exactly (no picking and choosing the rules you don’t want to follow).

After day 30, you will start re-introducing excluded foods one by one to see if you are sensitive. I describe a heart rate technique at the end of this post that you can use to detect even the slightest sensitivity. Once your list of food sensitivities has been compiled, you will have your own customized diet that is perfect just for you.

Should We See Obesity as a Disease?

Recently, the American Medical Association (AMA) recognized that obesity is a disease. This decision was actually the exact opposite of the recommendations made by the AMA's own investigating committee. What was the AMA's reasoning? To try and stop the growing epidemic of obesity by changing the way doctors and insurance companies view those with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of more than 30.

For sure, obesity is starting to get out of hand. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that obesity affects over 500 million adults and 40 million children under the age 5 worldwide. This represents about 10 percent of the population. The WHO also believes that obesity is now the fifth leading cause of death (globally) and is strongly associated with degenerative diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers. (1)

The age-adjusted rate of obesity in the US (in 2008).

Like many other bloggers, I'm happy to hear that the medical community is taking obesity more seriously, but am also conflicted about the decision to see obesity as a disease.

Obesity as a Disease

Let me start with the most obvious question: Is obesity a disease? This question can be answered by looking at the definition of disease:

Disease (n): a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment. 

By this definition, the AMA is correct in seeing obesity as a disease, as excessive amounts of body fat can cause health problems elsewhere in the body.

For instance, researchers are finding out that body fat cells don't just store energy, they collectively act as an endocrine organ that produce both inflammatory and anti-inflammatory chemical messengers (known as cytokines). (2) The pro-inflammatory cytokines include TNF-a, IL-1, IL-6, IL-18, and leptin. If a person has too much body fat, too much of these pro-inflammatory chemical messengers can cause a number of problems throughout the body, including rheumatoid arthritis, (3) asthma, (4) systemic inflammation, (5) diabetes, (6) atherosclerosis, (7) depression, (8) Alzheimer's Disease, (9) Celiac's Disease, (10) and certain cancers (11)

What Exactly is the Paleo Diet?

The Paleo Diet (sometimes called The Caveman Diet) has become very popular lately. Those who practice the diet swear that it improves their health, increases energy, improves insulin sensitivity, and helps shed unwanted pounds. (1) But others believe that the diet's insistence on quality local or organic foods is all just elitist foodie nonsense. (2) Who's right?

In this post, I'll explore the basic Paleo diet idea, what evidence may support its main arguments, and how far the diet itself as has evolved. Ultimately I'll answer the most important question: Is it just a fad?

Paleo Diet 101

The basic idea behind the Paleo(lithic) diet is to simply eat the foods that humans evolved to eat. Because it is believed that human growth, development, and health were calibrated to the various wild plant, animal, and insect foods available during the Paleolithic Era (the time period between 2.6 million to about 10,000 years ago), a person should experience optimal health by primarily consuming these foods. (3)

However, if a person deviates from this diet, chronic degenerative disease (e.g., diabetes, heart disease, cancer, obesity) will follow. In fact, creators of the diet blame the recent rise in these once rare degenerative diseases on a fundamental shift in the quality of the modern diet from fresh whole foods to new agricultural foods (e.g., grains, legumes, dairy) within the last 10,000 years. (4)

Consequently, since it is also believed that today's humans are genetically similar to Paleolithic humans, a person should be able to reduce--or eliminate--any chronic diseases they might have by going back to eating a Paleo-like diet that the human body is designed to eat (comprised primarily of fresh and whole plant and animal foods). (5)

Is the Paleo Diet a Fad?

When it comes to understanding whether or not a Paleo-like diet is faddish, I like looking at human evolution using a human calendar. (6) If our evolution spans 365 million years, then:

• January 1: Amphibian ancestor
• March 5: Reptile ancestor
• June 10: Early Mammal
• July 20: America starts to separate from Europe and Africa
• October 28: Primate ancestor
• Christmas Eve: Bipedal Ancestor (hominid)
• New Years Eve:
• 19:30:00 - Homo sapiens (modern humans)
• 21:30:00 - Some of us leave Africa
• 22:45:00 - Some of us go to New Guinea
• 23:00:00 - Some of us go to Europe
• 23:40:00 - And even Scandinavia
• 23:45:00 - Agriculture starts in Middle East
• 23:52:00 - Agriculture starts in Scandinavia
• 23:53:00 - The Ice Man dies in the Alps
• 23:59:00 - The Black Death (the European pandemic of plague)
• 23:59:50 - Cardiovascular disease appears

(Note: 1 day -1 million years; 1 hour = 41700 years; 1 minute = 694 years; 1 second = 11.5 years)

As I will discuss in a later section, humans were likely eating a diet comprised of locally-sourced meats, eggs, insects, vegetables, root vegetables, and fruit since sometime just before Christmas Eve (or about 2.6 million years ago). By contrast, certain humans have only been exposed to a grain-based Neolithic diet for about 15 minutes (about 10,000 years).

Americans (and much of Europe) have only enjoyed a more industrialized diet for about 8 seconds (or about 92 years). And the low-fat, low-cholesterol, and/or low-carb diets that are popular now have been utilized for only about 3 seconds (or about 30 years).

So, if we look at what the human diet should be from an evolutionary perspective, it seems that the basic belief that humans should eat fresh animal and plant foods is not faddish at all. However, as I will talk about throughout this post, there are certain faddish aspects to the Paleo Diet that should be better understood or avoided completely (e.g., Low/Zero-Carb, fear of all things Neolithic).

Stress and Metabolic Syndrome X

In my blog, you'll hear a lot about the stress hormone cortisol. If you have ever listened to a stress reduction briefing, or you exercise regularly, then you are likely aware of this hormone. However, what you might not be familiar with is cortisol's connection to the diseases that make up Metabolic Syndrome X. There is good evidence that cortisol is the "X" in Metabolic Syndrome X.

What is Metabolic Syndrome X?

Metabolic Syndrome X describes a mysterious connection between heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, abdominal obesity, diabetes, and high blood cholesterol. For someone to be diagnosed with Metabolic Syndrome, they must have three or more of the following risk factors: (1)

• Blood pressure equal to or higher than 130/85 mmHg
• Fasting blood sugar (glucose) equal to or higher than 100 mg/dL
• Large waist circumference (length around the waist):
• Men - 40 inches or more
• Women - 35 inches or more
• Low HDL cholesterol:
• Men - under 40 mg/dL
• Women - under 50 mg/dL
• Triglycerides equal to or higher than 150 mg/dL

The most interesting part about these risk factors is that they tend to appear together. For instance, if you are obese, then you are more likely to have (or develop) poor blood sugar control, high blood triglycerides, and high blood pressure. (2) Because these risk factors tend to appear (and disappear) together, they likely have a common cause.

While searching for this cause, I happened to read The Potbelly Syndrome by Russell Farris. It was here that I discovered that cortisol was likely the central cause of Metabolic Syndrome. I now believe that chronic stress (from any source) can cause chronic elevation of cortisol, which can cause serious dysfunction in the body. This dysfunction manifests itself as heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, abdominal obesity, diabetes, and high blood cholesterol (as well as muscle wasting, low energy, accelerated aging, osteoporosis, suppressed immune system, and cancer).