Love the Foods That Set You Free: An Accidental Wellness Journey through Good Gut Health to Weight Loss and Freedom from Chronic Disease

By Sarah Glass and Jessica Fowler

Do you have recurring or ongoing health issues? Are you living with a chronic disease? Do you need to take multiple medications to maintain your health? Are allergies or autoimmune symptoms cropping up in your life? Do you suffer from weight management issues? Or do you have a family history of ill health and want to protect yourself against dev

• Language: English
• Publisher: Love The Foods That Set You Free
• Release date: Mar 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781925949759

Sarah Glass

Sarah Glass BSc (Hons) Sarah is a Melbourne-based British/Australian wife, mother and grandmother. During her career Sarah has worked for a major US IT company as a project manager in communications software and is currently a share market analyst and investor. Sarah is currently undertaking a Masters degree in Nutrition with Deakin University in an effort to expand her knowledge of this fascinating topic.

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I started out my adult life as a musician but quickly found that it wasn’t a feasible day job and I needed a more stable income! Hence, along with working for income, I undertook a multidisciplinary undergraduate degree in Science and Technology. The degree covered all aspects of science and technology, such as biology, chemistry, physics, cosmology, computing and systems thinking. The areas of cosmology and systems thinking in particular caught my attention, and computing proved very useful as an income earner.

Later on, I undertook further postgraduate study in cosmology and systems thinking; the latter helped me form a wider, holistic view of whatever the topic I was covering. Understanding that any complex issue or problem is generally affected by many inputs or causes, but simply focussing on the manifested problem or output, very often would not lead to a solution, as many of the underlying multi-causal factors would not be understood.

Most complex problems appear to have a group of underlying causes, and fixing or eliminating one, may not solve the issue, though it might change the outcome. A full picture is required to get to the solution. This has been invaluable in my understanding, education and practice in this current search for good health, all of which has helped with the collation of data over the years of research, to put together a story that I hope will be interesting and enlightening for the reader.

I am in my mid-60s and semi-retired with a husband, daughter, son-in-law, grandson and granddaughter. And so, we go back a few decades to start …

I remember being on holiday with a friend on the Greek island of Crete when I was 35 and having some major digestive issues! I put the problem down to unfamiliar food, red wine and eating too late in the evening, all of which may have contributed to the issue, of course, but from that holiday onwards, I became aware that there was something wrong with my digestive system, and I never returned to normal health.

As we all would do, I visited the doctor on my return home (then in the UK) from holiday and was given the typical antacid medication and then sent away. Unfortunately, my digestion didn’t improve – I took antacids for years. In my 30s and 40s, I lost 5 of my 6 pregnancies and was given multiple courses of antibiotics to overcome infections after miscarriages. Over the following decade, I developed psoriasis all over my body, which eventually subsided to patches on my legs but never abated. I also developed arthritis in my hands, which was an issue as I love to play guitar, and it became too painful to be enjoyable.

To complete the picture, from birth I had been overweight – at times obese – and had tried every diet in the book. I had also always suffered from hay fever. These were complaints I thought I was stuck with – they were just part of who I was!

As I passed menopause, my cholesterol level began to rise, something that is quite common in women. There are many possible reasons for the higher cholesterol, one of which is that cholesterol is used in the production of oestrogen, and once that lessens, too much cholesterol can accumulate in the system¹, especially low-density lipoprotein (LDL), which can lead to cholesterol build-up in your arteries. I was eventually put on statins, but they gave me nasty muscle-aching side effects, so I was reluctant to take them. Over several years I took the statins intermittently; I would start for a while and then stop when the side effects became bad, and restart again when I recovered. I did this several times, and this meant that overall my cholesterol remained well above normal most of the time and my LDL cholesterol (the bad kind, as opposed to the good kind of HDL cholesterol) was high.

So here the story begins, with my first major change …

On a visit to the doctor, in early 2016 the subject of my cholesterol level arose. I had been on and off statins for a decade and did not like the side effects I was experiencing. We had a discussion about what else I might be able to do to lower my cholesterol and, thus, not need to take the statins anymore. My doctor suggested I stop eating sugar.

I went home confused as to why this would help, but when I put the television on that very same night, there was an SBS TV documentary about sugar. My husband and I sat and watched it, we were intrigued by what we saw and decided to look further. This led us to one of the experts who was interviewed briefly on the documentary, Professor Robert Lustig. Professor Lustig is a paediatric endocrinologist, which means he looks after children with hormonal issues (and sugar creates a number of hormonal issues). He has written books and given talks on the topic, and he was clearly an expert in the field, so we searched for more information from him.

We found Sugar: The Bitter Truth², a 1.5 hour-long fairly scientific lecture on YouTube by Professor Lustig on the topic of sugar and the damaging effects of the ever increasing amounts of sugar in our diets, which are due to the ways it effects our body’s biochemistry, summarised overleaf:

The Truth About Sugar

Table sugar of all types, honey, golden syrup and other traditional sugars are part glucose and part fructose, which are 2 different types of sugar molecule.

When glucose enters the system, insulin is produced by the pancreas, and this opens the cell doors for the glucose to enter and make energy inside the cells. It is then metabolised throughout the body. This is meant to happen and healthy in moderation!

However, the fructose part cannot do this; it cannot enter the cells, it has a molecular shape inconsistent with the ‘doorway’, it is not metabolised in the cells – hence it is returned to the liver.

The liver metabolises what it can of the fructose, but most of it is turned to fat and uric acid. Storage of this fat can lead to fatty liver disease and visceral fat in the abdominal cavity. Even fit and lean people can be storing this type of visceral fat around their abdominal organs and not even realise it. This process ultimately leads to metabolic syndrome and can include obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, gout, inflammation, high cholesterol and other issues.

The second byproduct of this process, uric acid, is what leads to gout and is a cause of high blood pressure.

In terms of our gut, sugar feeds the unhealthy gut bacteria, leading to a raft of other effects including inflammation – much more to say about this later.

Human biochemistry is only able to accommodate limited quantities of fructose, which is best consumed with fibre and fluid (such as whole fruit or vegetables). However, the Western diet has gradually changed to include large amounts of fructose in practically everything. Table sugar, honey, fruit juices and other sweeteners, and sugar imbedded in processed food all contain fructose and play havoc with the system.

Aside from Sugar: The Bitter Truth, I also recommend watching Professor Lustig’s Sweet Revenge.³ It is an interesting 1.5 hour non-scientific talk by an expert in this area, available to rent online. Professor Lustig explains in detail why sugar is a problem.

We were shocked! We had no idea of the damaging effects eating sugar had on the body. Both of us were determined not to eat sugar ever again. At this point I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes, which I recommend to others. This confirmed what Professor Lustig had said. Not only should eliminating sugar from my diet aid my cholesterol level, it should improve my health overall and help me lose weight.

This seemed dramatic. How could we possibly not eat a biscuit, a cake or a chocolate ever again?

Firstly, my husband and I went to the supermarket together to try and determine which foods had added sugar and which did not, because a lot of processed foods, although not especially sweet, still contain added sugar. Sugar is an addictive substance, and thus, manufacturers use it to tempt you to eat more of their product. Furthermore, it is a good preservative and thus allows a longer shelf life, which is good for the producers and retailers. Finally, it is a cheap filler for manufacturers to use.

We were shocked to find that most flavoured potato chips/crisps have added sugar, as do many cheese biscuits and pretty much all sauces. Obviously, anything sweet will have sugar, and any flavoured drinks and breakfast cereals will most likely have a lot of added sugar.

We had to completely alter the way we shopped, we discovered that if you read the label of the product, you can find out what percentage of the item comprises sugar by looking at the ‘Ave quantity per 100g’ section. Sugar should be no more than 4% or 5%, which will rule out sweet foods and many others too. Since many natural foods and grains have some natural sugar in them, there may be a little, but anything more than 5% will most probably be added sugar. So we determined not to buy any product that contained more than 5% sugar.

This eliminated around two-thirds of the products in the supermarket! We found ourselves shopping around the edges, for fruit, vegetables, dairy and meat, and popping into the aisles for the odd tin of tomatoes or corn, and perhaps some pasta or rice.

Around the same time, my daughter bought me I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson, and this helped us to get some ideas of what we could do to help ourselves in our quest. It is fine to eat glucose or a type of sugar that turns into only glucose in your body in moderate amounts. As described earlier, glucose is the sugar your body expects and needs; therefore, a small amount is quite acceptable. We could use dextrose (pure glucose powder) or rice malt syrup (maltose that turns to glucose in the body) to cook our own sweet items and thus be allowed a treat with our cuppa! We basically made any recipe for slices, biscuits and cakes, but used either dextrose or rice malt syrup instead of regular sugar. We also ate unsweetened breakfast cereals, such as oats, and added rice malt syrup as a sweetener. You can use artificial sweeteners, but it is possible that they will have unwanted side effects like so many manufactured additives appear to have, so we decided to stick with products our bodies would recognise and use in a healthy manner – and anyway, they taste better than artificial ones.

Now we were ready to give it a go. We had determined only a couple of breakfast cereals that didn’t contain added sugar and found some delicious sourdough bread made without the sweet addition. Our lunches and dinners were not too much of an issue, we just had to cut the desserts and eat fruit instead. We made our own nibbles, as described above.

I suffered bad withdrawal symptoms for about 2 weeks, and I missed the sweet stuff for maybe a month. I had headaches and felt quite miserable. After that withdrawal period, I felt much better, more energetic and had no desire for sugar whatsoever – and haven’t ever since. The substance surely is addictive, this experience reminded me very much of giving up smoking 40 years before.

My husband was lucky, as he didn’t get any withdrawal symptoms, but it took him a little longer to lose the craving, maybe 6 weeks. Like me, he has lost the nagging desire for sweet things since then.

What was the result of this change? Well, my cholesterol dropped, as my doctor had predicted, but not enough to be in normal range, so I had to think a bit more about that, but nevertheless, it was a good start. Both my husband and I lost about 8 kilograms without restricting the quantity of food we ate. Basically, we ate whatever we wanted to, except sugar – which by then we didn’t want anyway – so it was a very easy 8 kilogram weight loss. This was completely different from my life-long battle with obesity, which had led me to try every diet on the planet, as I mentioned above, with no long-lasting success. But here, I had lost weight easily and was still losing. I understood that without the sugar there was no way I could put it back on, and I haven’t – yay!

This felt like magic! I was so thankful to my doctor for suggesting it.

The next question for me was, why had I lost weight so easily, while still eating plenty of food?

So, it was back to more research and the discovery that sugar has the insidious effect of messing with the hormone signalling in our body, making us hungry and retaining energy as fat even when it is not required, as explained below:

W

hy Sugar Undermines Your Ability to Lose Weight

In his talk, Sweet Revenge, Professor Robert Lustig explains why sugar interferes with the hormonal balance and thus forces your body to work against you when you try to lose weight.

When you feel hungry a hormone called ghrelin is at work in your stomach and elsewhere in your body, telling you it is time to eat. You have a meal, and about 20 minutes after you start eating, the fibre content of the meal finds its way down to the small intestine and triggers another hormone called Peptide YY. The more fibre and the less sugar or processed carbohydrate (white flour, rice, etc.) in the meal, the more Peptide YY is released. Peptide YY is the satiety hormone, it tells you that you have eaten enough. If this feedback system is working correctly, you will not be tempted