Healing Outside The Box

I mentioned this In part one but it's worth repeating: if you are seriously considering weight loss surgery, please speak with a trusted healthcare professional. It is a huge decision and cannot be undone once it is done. Having said that, I go over some of the changes your body will experience and things that you need to look out for.

I then get to talking about the sustainability of weight loss with bariatric surgery. Dr Michael Greger has a short video on this with references. It can be found here.

As we all know, the science behind successful and sustainable weight loss involves our brain and can paint a complicated picture. Self sabotage and the boomerang effect are factors to consider.

If you have any questions for me about the nutritional impact of bariatric surgery, feel free to email me on my contact page, At Healing outside the box.

I'm bringing you part one of a two-part series on the risks and benefits of weight loss surgery. If I sound like a glass-half-empty person on this issue, you would be correct. I cannot emphasize enough that there are consequences to the surgery that need to be considered before making such an important decision. 

Usually, surgeons prefer a BMI of 40 before they will consider gastric bypass surgery. BMI is calculated as follows: [wt (lbs)/ ht (in)2] x 703

weight: 240 lbs, ht: 70 in:  240/(70 x 70) =0.049   0.049 x 703 = 34.4 BMI

A BMI of 34.4 would not qualify someone for gastric bypass.

Dr Michael Gregor has a short video discussing some of the consequences. It can be found here.

If you have any questions and would like me to address them, feel free to email me on my contact page, which is on my Healing outside the box website.

I was recently given this article from the New Yorker magazine on the newest "best" restaurant in the US. The restaurant presents authentic Native American cuisine and the chef is a native American himself. His name is Sean Sherman and he single-handedly brought the topic of native American cuisine front and center.  After looking into it myself, I was surprised at how little I knew about what our "Wanna-be ancestors" actually ate.

I also discuss an article from the Guardian about the failure of imitation meat products to take hold in fast-food restaurants. It seems that both the Burger King Impossible burger and the McDonald's McPlant burger, both sizzled and then fizzled. In my opinion, marketing to a meat-loving population by trying to imitate the original beef patty, while keeping the calories and saturated fat really high, was a huge mistake. Perhaps they should have marketed to vegetarians, with a Patty containing mushrooms, black beans, or even fish. 

Check with dietitians next time!

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions for future episode topics, you can always email me on my contact page, at Healing outside the box.

In part 2 of my discussion on the damage that fat shaming can do, I brainstorm things we could do in the preventative arena, both through government intervention and individual efforts. 

The first article discusses the labeling of obesity as a disease and what political actions resulted from that decision. The article can be found here. 

There was a heartwarming article from the Guardian about an organization called "Plantng Justice". You can find that article here.

If you want to follow me on instagram, search either my username (jeannetiberio) or real name (Jeanne Tiberio). I'll be posting short videos of mushroom recipes soon!

It may be time to get a little uncomfortable with what should be common sense but is seldom discussed. And it's this: Fat shaming is condoned in the medical community and it makes matters worse, not better. Let's put it another way: If someone is shamed or ridiculed for being overweight, they tend to gain weight rather than lose weight.

There have been a bunch of articles written on the subject recently. The American Medical Association looked at weight bias and its harmful effects in their journal of ethics. The link can be found here.

Dr. Michael Gregor has a six-minute video where he discusses the harmful effects of weight bias. You can find that video here.

This Cleveland Clinic article defines why leptin is an important hormone in weight regulation.

There is also an NIH article that discusses this topic in depth.

To estimate calories needed, multiply your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) by an activity factor:

BMR = 10 x wt (Kg)  +  6.25 x ht (cm) - 5 x age {years)  - 161

Sedentary: BMR x 1.2

Lightly active: BMR x 1.375

Moderately active: BMR x 1.55

Very active: BMR x 1.725

As always, feel free to contact me on my website contact page, Which Is Healing Outside the Box.

We women of a certain age tend to take thinning hair very seriously. But here's what I have been wondering. Is it really worse here in the 21st century, or are we more self-aware of our looks since we've been bombarded with images of beautiful hair on TV and video?
I have looked into this and it turns out this may indeed be the case. Our hair may be thinning out at an earlier age now. But if it is worse, what can we do about it? I discuss what's out in the literature on this topic.
Dr. Michael Greger has a short six-minute video discussing best dietary practices to preserve your hair. He looks into the literature for what works and what doesn't work to keep your hair healthy and on your head. That can be found here.
If you want information on want to ask questions about what I have found, feel free to contact me on my contact page on my website. It Is Healing Outside the Box.

In this cranked-up super-speed society we live in, we're usually on to something else if the topic doesn’t grab our attention in the first 6 seconds. And that would certainly be the case if the topic is anhydrous ammonia fertilizer. But today I’m asking you to care, for many reasons that I discuss in this episode.

Before I get to the fertilizer, I mention the group of foods that give you the most nutritional quality for your food dollar.

And that group would be beans, chickpeas, split peas, and lentils. And you can do mainstream lunches and suppers with these inexpensive foods. If you want a copy of my favorite bean recipes (including a killer hummus),  just send a note on my contact page and I will email you my favorite recipes. 

One of the reasons that beans and lentils are highly nutritious is that they have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory substances that have been shown to help prevent cardiovascular events (strokes, heart attacks). They also slow down the entry of glucose into our bloodstream. Dr. Michael Gregor has both a video and a blog article that gets into the studies that show this.

In the episode, I mention a description of farmworkers getting 3rd-degree burns when their skin is exposed to liquid OR gaseous ammonia in these concentrations. The article that I quote from can be found here. 

Although the data on this is alarmingly minimal, liquefied anhydrous ammonia does appear to kill earthworms on or near the surface where this toxic substance is sprayed. Killing earthworms is bound to have a trickle-down effect on the nutritional quality and flavor of food. The USDA article that tells us all about earthworms can be found here. 

If you have any questions or comments on this or other episodes, feel free to contact me on my contact page, which is on my website: Healing outside the Box.

Happy Earth Day, people! I thought I'd celebrate this beautiful planet of ours by talking about garbage. 

but first, I tell you a little story about a town called Hamilton Massachusetts. It is where the richest 1% hang their hats... and their town sport is polo. (Of course, it is.) Last year they quietly initiated a mandatory curbside composting program. You can read the story in our local newspaper here.

I was jealous that

Hamilton was getting free composting bins when they could certainly afford to buy their own, so I went to the composting website in my town, Salem, and they listed options if you were inclined to do your own composting with your own money. If you would like to see what they are offering, the link is here.

if you want to invest more money for less labor, there are a bunch of compost tumblers to choose from. This particular one appears to be a decent option that will limit the manual stirring of the contents and keep out the rodents.

EPA has an excellent website with instructions on how to home compost using worms. The EPA walks you through the process on this website.

As always, if you have any questions or would like to hire a nutritionist to help you with your wellness goals, feel free to contact me on my website contact page, at Healing Outside the Box.

Have you ever wondered what causes you to feel hungry, even though you perhaps shouldn't be? 

In this episode, I discuss the biology behind what makes us feel hungry or full. The initial NIH article that I refer to frequently (a meta-analysis of 10 studies on ghrelin) can be found here 

in this article from endocrine web.com, the author explains how issues with the hypothalamus, insulin secretion, or weight can create imbalances of both Ghrelin (the hunger hormone) and leptin (the fullness hormone).

I also explain how marijuana gives people "the munchies". It is the THC that triggers the release of ghrelin, whether we are hungry or not. CBD by itself does not have the same effect on ghrelin levels. But if the CBD gummies relieve nausea, the person may feel more like eating. The reference from the Washington Post article can be found here. 
If you have any questions or would like to speak to a nutrition professional about your appetite and stress issues, feel free to contact me on my contact page, here at Healing outside the box.

Many of us are feeling some anxiety about what to believe or disbelieve regarding how to avoid getting sick from Covid. Maybe the old saying "if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck" may be right after all. Does it matter if there is a 5% chance that it is a goose?
I've plowed through a bunch of research articles and I have laid them out in this podcast episode... In no particular order.

1. this first video is a YouTube talking head video between two physicians. They both agree that offering a vitamin D supplement to Covid patients because the evidence is strong that people need adequate vitamin D to fight the disease.
2. These next two references from pub med look at what the past data on thousands of Covid patients are telling us, in an abstract only. Reference(1) reference (2)
3. this British Medical Journal article takes another stance, stating there is not enough evidence proving a strong relationship between vitamin D deficiency and severe illness/death from Covid.
4. Here is a retrospective case-control study from the Middle East, showing that everyone in the world is getting on board with this research. It explains the connection between blood pressure regulation and the binding of the Covid virus to our cells.
5. This article explains that it is currently testing a drug to basically do what vitamin D is doing... Competing with the virus for the binding site to our cells.