1 - 2023 - Dr Libby

Demystifying food trends

January 24, 2023 by Dr Libby Weaver

Food trends… just when we think we’ve heard them all, there’s a new kid on the block claiming to be the saving grace for all health concerns. Many people are forever looking for answers – they want to know exactly what to eat and which ‘pill’ will solve everything. They are looking for a prescription, a guarantee that if they follow the rules, they’ll be ‘fixed’ once and for all.

It is understandable why food has become so confusing. One day you might read that low fat yoghurt is good for your health and the next that it’s not, and that kale is far more beneficial. One way to decipher the mixed messages is to consider if a food is nourishing, rather than healthy. Food is not actually healthy. People are or they aren’t. Food is nutritious or it isn’t. Seeing food through this lens can help us to bring more common sense and ease to food choices.

The way to not get caught up in food and nutrition fads is to remember that when it comes to food, Nature gets it right, and it is potentially human intervention that can get it so wrong. In other words, what have become known as ultra-processed foods, are not really ‘foods’ at all, often made from fake food substances and offering very little, if any, nutritional value. Yet when we choose predominantly whole, real foods, our health is rewarded from the nutrient density they provide.

Education is part of any health journey and change process. Sometimes we don’t understand what’s going on for us and we need assistance to get to the heart of it. But when we continue to seek authority, jumping from one expert to the next, without also looking inward for our own answers and paying attention to what our body is communicating through symptoms, we are doing ourselves a great disservice.

There is no one set way to approach health that works for all of us. It might suit your friend to be vegan, but when you try it, you feel completely exhausted no matter how much or how frequently you eat, and you are always iron deficient. Our body gives us messages all the time, trying to help us understand what it needs. Try to look at the symptoms you experience as messages offering you feedback about your choices. Is that headache you get most afternoons at 3pm from a lack of pain killers? (I’m joking!) Or is it your body prompting you to eat afternoon tea or up your hydration or to slow your breathing or to take a break from your computer and go outside and change your posture? When you tune in, you’ll likely hear a response bubble up, guiding you forward.

It’s your choice (of course) how you eat, whereas it’s my job to make sure people get everything they need from the way they eat. Let’s examine some common ways of eating and their subsequent potential for nutrient deficiencies:

Vegetarian

Iron: If you’re a menstruating female, you need 18mg of iron per day. With eggs being one of the richest vegetarian sources of iron at 0.7mg of iron per egg—you can see how easily a deficiency can occur when you need 18mg every day.
Zinc: you require 8-14mg per day. Sunflower and pumpkin seeds are some of the only vegetarian sources of zinc and they contain 0.9 mg zinc per 100 grams—taking into consideration how little seeds weigh.

Vegan

Iron and zinc are common deficiencies (as outlined above).
Vitamin B12: stores will generally last between two and five years, and as animal foods are the only source, supplementation is essential before stores run out.
Calcium: if you drink caffeinated drinks or soft drinks, your requirement for calcium will be higher than if you don’t. Calcium is widely spread throughout plant foods but a focus on eating enough is important given adult women need 1000 – 1300mg per day.
Omega 3 essential fats: the body can convert EPA (one type of essential fat) from plants into DHA (another essential fat) found in algae and fish, yet in many people this is inefficiently done. Sources of EPA include flaxseeds, chia seeds, and walnuts.

Low-Carb

If you eat a very low-carb diet in any form, you need to ensure you obtain enough B group vitamins.

Low-Fat

Essential fats: the omga-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids are just that—essential!
Fat soluble vitamins: Vitamins A, D, E and K are widely spread throughout foods that contain fat.

As you can see it’s important to ensure you are obtaining all of the nutrients your body needs for optimal health and function and in some situations where dietary intake is insufficient, supplementation is required. Zinc, for example, contributes to hundreds of processes inside your body including the creation of over 300 enzymes, many of which are necessary for great digestion, the foundation of all health. Yet this is one of the most common dietary mineral deficiencies. Obtaining adequate zinc in our diets can be a task in itself, let alone when we follow a restricted way of eating.

If you’re still asking “what am I supposed to eat?”, I gently offer you these guiding principles:

Eat mostly whole, real foods
Stop counting calories and if you need to count anything, count nutrients
Consider how your food has been grown and produced—not just for your health but also for that of your family, the planet, and other animals. Get to know and thank your farmers if you can
All whole, real foods are superstars! Try not to get caught up in food trends and fads
Consider ‘how’ you’re eating and do your best to eat in a calm state to maximise digestion capability
Ensure the meat you eat is organic and grass/pasture-fed, not grain-fed
If a particular way of eating suits your body or your beliefs, ensure you are obtaining all the nutrients your body needs for optimal health and function
Consider whether you need to supplement your nutrient intake

Allow your inner wisdom to guide your choices. Apply common sense. Be so kind to yourself and remember that it is what you do every day that impacts on your health, not what you occasionally do – hot chips twice a week has very different effects to hot chips 10 times a year. No long term, sustained change I have ever witnessed has stemmed from a headspace of deprivation.

Live each day in touch with how precious life is, how precious you are—and treat yourself accordingly.

9 tell-tale signs you have blood sugar issues

January 24, 2023 by Dr Libby Weaver

When it comes to blood sugar levels throughout the day, even undulations is the ideal pattern. Yet, for many people their blood sugar picture across the day resembles a rollercoaster. Not only can this have a significant impact on how we look and feel each day, but it can also have a flow on effect on our health, setting us up for metabolic disease and other chronic health conditions.

Troublingly, many people don’t realise they have issues with their blood sugar until they are diagnosed with impaired glucose tolerance, or as pre-diabetic (type 2), or with type 2 diabetes by their GP. Like anything, the sooner you catch something the easier it is to improve or correct. So, if you identify with any of the following tell-tale blood sugar issue signs, I can’t encourage you enough to take steps towards stabilising them for your health now and into the future.

1. There’s an urgency to your hunger

If you get shaky, lightheaded, dizzy or hangry in the lead up to mealtimes, it can be a sign that your blood sugar levels have crashed. You may experience this if you drink coffee on an empty (or relatively empty) stomach too.

2. You keep craving sugar

Can’t shake those sugar cravings? When our blood sugar crashes, our body looks for a quick source of energy to boost it back up. Our body has two sources of fuel – glucose (aka sugar) and fat and guess which is faster to act? Glucose. So if despite your best efforts you can’t help but reach for that muffin to get you through the afternoon, it can be a sign that your body is hunting down quick energy.

3. You experience anxious feelings or irritability, that eating relieves

Snapping at loved ones or feel as though your moods are as variable as the tides? Blood sugar levels have a significant impact on mood, including low mood and anxious feelings. While there are many other things behind mood challenges, if you identify with other points here, blood sugar issues may be contributing.

4. You have brain fog or concentration challenges

Your brain requires significant amounts of energy and it primarily uses glucose as its fuel. So when your blood sugar levels are out of whack, your brain’s ability to function optimally can become compromised and you may experience brain fog, memory loss and forgetfulness. You may also have trouble concentrating.

5. You experience cycle or menopausal challenges

When your blood sugar elevates, your body has to produce insulin to deal with the spike. In the right amount, this is healthy, in excess it can lead to insulin resistance (constantly elevated blood insulin levels). Insulin resistance disrupts the actions of other important hormones including your sex hormones, and compromising the delicate balance of these tiny substances can have a significant impact. This means that poorly regulated blood sugar and elevated insulin can be behind symptoms associated with your monthly cycle or menopause or make them worse.

6. You can’t shift body fat

There are nine factors that influence whether the body gets the message to burn body fat as a fuel or store it and insulin/blood sugar regulation is one of them. You may be noticing that your clothes are fitting differently or perhaps you’re trying to decrease body fat and it just won’t seem to budge.

7. Your energy crashes or you often wonder where it went

When your blood sugar levels peak and dip, your energy levels usually do the same. A typical crash time is mid-afternoon, yet after living this way consistently, it can lead to energy that flatlines all across the day. You may also experience a desperate need for caffeine to ‘wake up’ in the morning and/or to keep you going throughout the day.

8. You’re wired yet tired come bedtime

All that caffeine and sugar can impact on your body’s ability to sleep restoratively. Despite a bone-deep fatigue, you may feel too wired to fall asleep or might drift in and out of consciousness without properly dropping off. And you consistently wake up tired.

9. Your sleep is disturbed

There’s a corresponding relationship between sugar and your sleep – both affect each other. When you don’t get sufficient sleep, you tend to crave sugar (or carbohydrates) to boost your energy. Plus, hormones like ghrelin that help to regulate appetite, are disrupted with too little sleep. Blood sugar issues can also affect the quality of your sleep – and not just because you may be leaning on more caffeine. If your blood sugar levels are all over the place, you may find yourself waking up starving and not being able to get back to sleep. You may also wake up feeling exhausted, even if you have had a full night of sleep.

To address blood sugar issues, one of the first steps is to consider how you nourish yourself. Focus on eating mostly whole real foods, make water your main drink and minimise ultra-processed foods. While it can help to focus on eating regularly (e.g. three satiating meals per day), simply eating more regular meals isn’t going to address the underlying blood sugar issues if food choice quality is poor. That said, if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, your energy needs will be much higher, and you will most likely need to eat more frequently. Either way, try eating protein with each meal and include a source of whole food fat such as avocado, coconut, nuts or oily fish as well. Obtain your carbohydrates from real food – root vegetables for example – rather than refined packaged ‘foods’, avoid eating carbohydrate-rich foods on their own, and keep caffeine intake to a minimum. See what makes a difference to your blood glucose patterns.

Which oils are best for your health and which are best to avoid?

January 19, 2023 by Dr Libby Weaver

I’m often asked which oils are best for cooking with, yet oils often play a much bigger role in people’s diets without them realising. The vast majority of packaged, processed, frozen and deep-fried foods are laden with poor quality oils which you may be inadvertently consuming on a regular basis. Like foods in general, when it comes to oils, the closer to nature an oil comes, the more nourishment it can offer. Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that because oils also have a unique smoke point—that is, a temperature they can tolerate before they begin to oxidise, changing structure and releasing free radicals.

To help, here’s a guide on which oils are best to minimise or avoid and which are wiser to consume, including how best to serve them.

Oils to avoid

The oils to avoid fall under the blanket category of industrial seed oils. These include:

canola (also known as rapeseed) oil
soy oil
sunflower oil
safflower oil
corn oil
rice bran oil
cottonseed oil
peanut oil

Sometimes these oils are given the more vague term of ‘vegetable oil’ but this simply means it is one or more of these oils.

Food manufacturers typically use industrial seed oils in their products as they are much more cost effective than traditional oils. These oils are highly refined—often using chemicals, solvents and bleaches in the production process, or heating the oil to such a high degree that it damages the oil. Not only can these oils drive inflammation in the body, they can also contribute to insulin resistance. They are more prevalent than you may realise—commonly found in products such as mayonnaise, crackers, long life milks, salad dressings, confectionary, protein bars and so much more. Always check the ingredients list of a product and avoid or minimise anything that contains industrial seed oils. It’s also worth noting that many fast food, takeaway outlets and restaurants also cook with poor quality oils so check in with your favourite establishments and ask and/or keep your eating out to a minimum.

Oils to enjoy

Avocado oil has a mild, buttery flavour making it great as a dressing for salads or vegetables. And with one of the highest smoke points (around 255°C), it’s also a great oil to use for cooking. Avocado is a great source of antioxidants and monounsaturated fat which offers the body a host of heart health benefits.

Extra Virgin Olive oil is another mild (though can also be flavourful depending on the variety) oil full of monounsaturated fats that can be used for numerous purposes. It blends well with other herbs and vinegars to make a delicious vinaigrette and is good for cooking at lower temperatures (up to around 180°C). Extra virgin olive oil (the extra virgin means it is less refined than regular olive oil retaining more of its nutrients) is an excellent source of vitamins E and K, antioxidants and oleic acid which has anti-inflammatory properties.

Coconut oil has quite a strong flavour but is great in baking as a dairy free alternative to butter and is delicious with roast vegetables. It also has a relatively high smoke point (around 175°C) so can be good as a cooking oil, however, it may alter the flavour of some foods. Coconut oil is a source of whole food saturated fat and MCTs (medium chain triglycerides) which are can be an efficient energy source for the body. Coconut oil seems to increase some people’s blood levels of cholesterol when eaten daily, but not everyone’s. So if you decide to include it regularly, have a blood test done three months down the track to see how you respond.

Macadamia oil offers a mild buttery flavour and a relatively high smoke point (210°C) so it’s a good all-rounder (and another more mildly flavoured dairy free baking addition). Macadamias are high in monounsaturated fats, antioxidants and vitamin E.

Why your insulin levels are so important (whether you’re a diabetic or not)

January 19, 2023 by Dr Libby Weaver

Most people know that insulin is linked to blood sugar levels and that too much or too little is associated with type 1 and type 2 diabetes (which are very different illnesses). Yet, that’s often where people’s understanding ends.

Insulin, which is made in the pancreas, is a type of growth hormone—hence its capacity to drive energy storage – both glucose (as glycogen) and fat. This is vital and helpful, however in excess can become a problem. We make insulin when we eat and it helps to transport energy to our cells by communicating to them to open up and absorb the nutrients available in our bloodstream. Carbohydrates elicit the most significant production, while protein drives a small amount. The insulin produced when you consume protein is usually offset by another hormone that protein elicits, called glucagon, which acts in the opposite way to insulin.

Insulin and carbohydrates

When you consume carbohydrates, whether they are starchy or sweet carbs, they are broken down into glucose. Typical sources of carbohydrates in the modern diet include bread, pasta, rice, all types of potatoes and the other starchy vegetables (including pumpkin and corn), fruit, dairy products, lollies/sweets, cakes, biscuits, pastries, honey, maple syrup and sugar. I encourage people to consume carbohydrates from real food, whole food sources such as root vegetables and wholegrains, such as a brown rice.

Glucose from the carbohydrates ends up in your blood stream, and your body identifies that blood sugar levels have been elevated. Your body does not like it when blood glucose levels go high, as too much sugar in the blood can damage the lining of the blood vessels. To protect the blood vessels from being damaged, the pancreas secretes insulin into the blood. It is the job of insulin to remove the glucose from the blood so that homeostasis (balance) returns to the blood. The health of the blood must be maintained at all costs.

Insulin first takes the sugar to the muscles and the liver, where it is stored as glycogen, places from which it can be released easily if we need a fast source of energy if we have not eaten for a while. But the size of our muscles is finite, meaning they have their storage limit. Once they are full of glycogen, if more sugar from the blood needs to be removed, then insulin will transport it to the fat cells because of their infinite capacity to expand.

The insulin puzzle

The only carbohydrates humans once ate were root vegetables, legumes, pulses and berries. These days, there are over 3000 snack-food items alone on the shelves of the average supermarket, and this number is growing constantly. It is big surges of insulin on and off over the day, or constantly high circulating insulin, that are problems when it comes to every aspect of our health, including using body fat efficiently. These big surges most often come from consuming large quantities of highly processed or packaged foods. If you have spent months committed to exercising and eating well with little or no reward, have your fasting blood glucose level (BGL) as well as your fasting blood insulin level tested. I have had clients with perfect BGLs, but their bodies are making huge amounts of insulin to keep their blood glucose inside the normal range, and you never know this until you test the insulin. No matter how much you exercise or how seemingly amazingly you eat, you will not access your fat stores to burn in this biochemical state. Insulin must be addressed.

So how do you maintain optimum insulin levels?

Avoid ultra-processed foods and consuming carbohydrates on their own—always pair them with protein and/or nourishing whole food fats. People have become confused about and fearful of carbs, and yet we must consume some carbohydrates, as they are vital to the function of our brain, kidneys and red blood cells. The amount that’s ideal to consume is highly individual and dependent on many factors. Also minimise highly processed and packaged foods and focus on eating whole real foods as close as they come to nature.