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Topics:
Liz’s book news (06:22)
21-Day Sugar Detox news (8:28)
Paleo Jerks (12:17)
Thinning Hair (29:28)
Adrenal fatigue (38:40)
Dry Aging Skin (48:32)
Links:
Vintage Tradition
Dr. Ron’s Ultra Pure
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Liz Wolfe: Hey, friends! Welcome to episode 109 (actually 108!) of the Balanced Bites podcast. Liz here, and Diane’s over there, and we’re together. It feels good.
Diane Sanfilippo: Whoop whoop!
Liz Wolfe: It feels so good!
Diane Sanfilippo: What’s up, friend?
Liz Wolfe: I kind of miss Philly Sports Talk Radio. Do you ever listen to Mikey Miss; Mike Missanelli?
Diane Sanfilippo: {Laughs}
Liz Wolfe: You’re not near Philly, are you?
Diane Sanfilippo: No. I’m so… I literally, as the weeks go by, I want to know what I add to this podcast, because I know that people are entertained by your humor and wit
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: and I’m like, I don’t know anything about pop culture, I don’t… I’m not funny.
Liz Wolfe: You’re too busy changing the world.
Diane Sanfilippo: People said on my Facebook wall that I should do a giveaway where somebody wins a day to hang out with me, and I was like, you guys have no idea how boring my life is! {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m like, I’m home working, and at 5:30 I leave to go to the gym. And that’s pretty much it. Every single day. Anyway. It’s not that bad.
Liz Wolfe: That’s why I moved all the way to Kansas City to get away from you.
Diane Sanfilippo: And to a farm with goats.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: You want to tell people about our sponsors?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. We are brought to you by Chameleon Cold-Brew, and by the way, just so you know Diane, I know you have a little pumpkin spice Starbucks recipe, but I heated up, just so everybody knows, although its called cold-brew, yes you can drink it warm, and its fabulous, and I got the mocha brew, and mixed it with a little coconut milk and a little pumpkin pie spice, and it was am-azing.
Diane Sanfilippo: The mocha is ridiculous.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, it is actually quite ridiculous.
Diane Sanfilippo: And they just started making it in the bigger bottles {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {gasps}
Diane Sanfilippo: And one of our listeners actually commented that he’s glad he read the bottle before he went to drink it, because he almost drank like half the bottle at once. Which, I know, a lot of people do it anyway, but it’s supposed to be maybe 8 servings.
Liz Wolfe: Yup.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think it’s like, 4 servings, legitimately, but, anyway.
Liz Wolfe: The first Chameleon Cold-Brew I ever bought, like, long before we ever thought about, it was ever in our heads to have them as sponsors, I bought some at the Wegmans in Cherry Hill, and like, did not read the bottle.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Stuck a straw in the top and just called it a day?!
Liz Wolfe: I literally just downed it like I down Kombucha, and I was, I was like a chameleon. We’ve talked about this before.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: But now that I’m like deep into the book stuff, and I also have some news on that, which everybody will find out pretty soon, but now that I’m deep into the book stuff, at this point, caffeine doesn’t even phase me. It’s like when Westley tried to beat up Fezzik, the giant, you know.
Diane Sanfilippo: Uh, in The Princess Bride?
Liz Wolfe: In The Princess Bride.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yes!
Liz Wolfe: And he’s like, “I just want you to feel like you are doing well”. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m punching the ceiling because I’m so excited that I just got that.
Liz Wolfe: You got that?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yes!
Liz Wolfe: I’m glad. I’m giving you the golf clap.
Diane Sanfilippo: gasp.
Liz Wolfe: Anyway, I kind of forgot what I was talking about. We’re also sponsored by Pete’s Paleo. I made a nice little apple bacon breakfast hash with Pete’s Paleo bacon, which is also insanely good.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ridiculous. They have; I think their offer for us, if you guys check out the podcast blog post, the code is BALANCEDBITESROCKS, and I can’t remember the Chameleon code, but just hop on over to the blog post, and we’ve got ads on there. But, I think they give you, what from Pete’s, like 2 free meals, or free meal, or something like that. So, check out the blog post and you can see what you get with your order. They’ve got some amazing grass fed, organic, yummy, deliciousness. We also have some stuff coming up from Pete’s Paleo for the 21-Day Sugar Detox, so anybody that is interested in doing the sugar detox and who also might like a little bit of help, I think we are putting together like a one-meal a day, kind of 21 meals situation. All approved for the 21DSD.
Liz Wolfe: Very cool.
Diane Sanfilippo: So stay tuned for details on that one!
Liz Wolfe: So speaking of things that are awesome, I want to give a little shout to my grandma, who got a new iPad mini and may or may not be listening to the podcast on her iPad mini! Love you!
Diane Sanfilippo: I wish my grandma would do that more. The funny thing is, she actually loves the food, so sometimes I’ll post on Instagram or somewhere a picture of a barbecue dinner that my parent’s will make, like a Sunday night, its so weird that I live in the same town as my parents again! {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: But after 7 years across the country, but its really nice. But yeah, we’ll have this like totally paleo meal, because much like they used to oblige the vegetarians in the family, like 20 years ago, now its like, my mom will text me, “I made a meatloaf. Its paleo, so do you want some?” It’s so cute.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} She’s loving you with food.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, and as I do, also. But yeah, so my grandma…she’ll go to town on like lamb chops and sweet potato and all that.
Liz Wolfe: Your grandma has yet to get on Facebook, though.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, that will not be happening.
Liz Wolfe: You never know!
Diane Sanfilippo: She still knits. But, anyway. Do you want to tell us anything about your book?
1. Liz’s book news (06:22)
Liz Wolfe: The book? Yeah. So, I had a big kind of come to “He-sus” with the publisher and my editor and
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} and we were kind of hashing out this problem that we have seen growing, and that is the content doesn’t match the cover or the title. When I first set out to write this book, I don’t know that I had as much confidence in my knowledge as I do now, and did gain over the course over the last couple of years, and you know, I was just planning on writing kind of a little sassy little fun type of read that, you know, spanked a couple of myths and, you know, put that skinny you-know-what book in its place. I can’t say the B-word, because I said it last time. We’re going to get an explicit label. But it’s just turned into, almost like a Michael Pollan meets Michael Scott from the Office, Nora Gedgaudas meets Carrot Top type of deal, you know? Liz Wolfe meets Liz Lemon; I don’t know.
Diane Sanfilippo: Liz Lemon!! {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Liz Lemon!!! {laughs} So it’s just more information, more myth-busting. It’s a beast, and so we’re going to totally…we’re changing the title, we’re going to change the cover, and it’s really going to be…its going to look as awesome as I believe the content is. I think the content could reach a lot more people than a book about a sassy cave girl, as much as I love that picture and the title of the book. So, I’m feeling really good about it. It will have to come out after Christmas, though, but it’s in stone now, it’s solid, it’s going to be really amazing. So, if everybody could just stick with me on this, I would so much appreciate it, because I’m finally feeling so, so good about it! I went and I did the Kenny Loggins dance to Footloose the other day.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yes!
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. It was cool. So, I’m happy.
Diane Sanfilippo: Okay, so when people see Amazon send them an E-mail at some point that the title of the book has changed, and the date has changed, they should not be alarmed;
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: Just hang out, and all will be well in the world when this book comes out.
2. 21-Day Sugar Detox news (8:28)
Liz Wolfe: All will be well. It will be wonderful. Wonderful! And by the way, question about 21-Day Sugar Detox. So tell me what’s going on with that, and also what is going on with the website and what’s available to people as far as the guides and stuff like that. I saw something about the book.
Diane Sanfilippo: Okay. I’ll try and cover this quickly.
Liz Wolfe: Okay.
Diane Sanfilippo: Because we have some good questions today. 21-Day Sugar Detox, the book comes out October 29th, I think. So, next week we have John Durant on, and then the following week I’ll do a bunch more Q&A about that. But, as a heads up for anybody who was curious about the online program; it’s no longer available in the form that it was for the last 3-plus years. So if you go to http://www.the21daysugardetox.com/ you can’t buy the PDFs anymore. The only way to get a version of those, which are now called the 21-Day quick start guides, it’s a little bit of a modified version of what was for sale previously for $21, is that you preorder the book on Amazon or your online retailer of choice, I have a few links on the page, and then come back to the page and enter your name, E-mail, and order number, and we will send you those PDFs totally for free when you preorder the book. So you kind of get like 2-in-1, which is really awesome, and I’m really excited about that, and, additionally if you already own the guides and you’re wondering, okay, what’s amazing for me now, is that I have a new program that I am launching soon, we’re not sure how soon, we are collecting up some of the final content for it, and its called Beyond Sugar Detox. So, it’s additional support materials. We’ve got a bunch of podcasts recorded between some of the moderators from the Facebook page. They’ve got tons of information for you guys and how I’ll be doing a few of those podcasts with them. So video help, some additional content, and also first dibs on the sort of one-on-one help within the new Balanced Bites Forums, which I should announce that, but there are forums now live on the Balanced Bites website. But, Beyond Sugar Detox will be as it sounds; beyond sugar detox, so its not just what is in the book, it is more support for while you are on your 3-week detox but also beyond that, so some more help for transitioning back, and more help for, you know, just how to carry it through, kind of to the rest of your life and to see where you are going to go with it. And anybody who owned the PDFs previously who paid the $21; you will actually be able to sign up to get a special offer for you guys where you will get $21 off of the new program, so you are basically getting that $21 back, so go ahead and sign up for the new program, which I think our initial price on that will be $37, so anybody who already bought the guides will be able to use that special offer. So, all that stuff you go to http://www.the21daysugardetox.com/, you can see the first video. If you already own them, there is a little blue box that says “Already own the guides? Click here”, so you can check that out. And that’s all the good new stuff for now.
Liz Wolfe: Did you know that every once in a while, a hen will have a hiccup in her laying cycle, and will lay what is often called a “fart egg”, which may or may not have a yolk?
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: {laughing} You want to know what I do when your talking? {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: So what happens.
Liz Wolfe: It’s like a little hiccup in the laying cycle. I got that from Official Backyard Chickens BYC on Facebook. It’s like a little
Diane Sanfilippo: Then it must be true.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Yes. It looks like its true. I believe it.
Diane Sanfilippo: It sounds sad and a little scary. Alright, let’s answer some questions.
Liz Wolfe: Alright, cool.
Diane Sanfilippo: Shall we?
3. Paleo Jerks (12:17)
Liz Wolfe: We shall. Alright, this first question; I have a feeling I’m going to have to censor it a little bit, but this cracked me up when I first read it, so, bear with me I might start cracking up in the middle. This question is from, should I say her name? I don’t want her friend’s to know the names she is calling them.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh okay.
Liz Wolfe: This question is entitled “Paleo Jerks”. {laughing} Alright. “Hi guys!” {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: If anybody wants to know how to get us to answer their questions, there you go.
Liz Wolfe: Just make me laugh. “Hi guys! I love your podcast, and respective websites…
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: “And appreciate all the useful and applicable information that you provide. That being said, I started eating paleo about 2 years ago. I suffer from a healthy amount of social anxiety, but still manage to make a lot of paleo friends in the community from Facebook and meet up. I recently expanded my diet to include things that I was really missing, specifically hummus and cheese, not together; eww.” {laughs} Oh she’s funny. “I went to a group event at a restaurant about 2 weeks ago, and got a stern talking to when I ordered something that contained cheese. It almost felt like an intervention. They were talking to me like I didn’t know what damage I was doing to myself. I kept my cool and explained that their paleo isn’t my paleo. I can tolerate these foods, I’m not sitting down and eating a bowl of cheese in place of other, more nutritious foods, yadda yadda. They then said that I could be triggering other people by eating cheese in front of them. To avoid further drama, I wound up asking the server to hold the cheese.” Oh my gosh. I just see her chasing down her server before he enters the order, like.
Diane Sanfilippo: And I just died a little inside.
Liz Wolfe: I did too. “Everything shifted back to normal, and we went on with the meal. Later in the evening, the subject of legumes came up, and I admitted that I had reintroduced hummus since I missed it so much. You would have thought I admitted to being a serial killer!” {laughs} “It felt like that scene” {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing} this is too much.
Liz Wolfe: “It felt like that scene in Chasing Amy where Alyssa’s gay friends find out she’s dating a guy, and are all, ‘Another one bites the dust’” {laughing} I can’t handle it. “We ended the meal with them being pretty icy to me, and me giving …” {laughing} I want to be friends with this girl so bad. “We ended the meal with them being pretty icy to me, and me giving none of the craps” which is not what she said in the actual question, but {laughing} “and me giving none of the craps because I was mad and felt like they were attacking me. Our meet up group leader, who was not present at the previously mentioned outing, posted a passive-aggressive message a few days later about how it had been brought to his attention that someone was eating things that weren’t paleo at an outing, and how that behavior will not be tolerated. I kid you not. That really made me completely irate, so I left the group. A very small handful of people reached out to me, and said they felt like everyone else had overreacted, but they have remained members of the group, so I feel like I shouldn’t even respond to them on principle. It’s great to be passionate and believe in something, but it’s not so great to ostracize someone for believing in something that is slightly different. This has really soured me on the community to the point where I don’t even label myself as paleo anymore. When people ask me about my diet, I just tell them that I am grain-free and processed food and sugar-free. I feel alienated and like suddenly I’ve lost all my friends (sad trombone)” {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Wah-wah.
Liz Wolfe: {trombone noise} {laughs} “Granted, maybe they weren’t really friends to begin with given how judgmental they really are, but it still sucks. So, to my questions. What is up with these paleo jerks? Do you think this is a product of the internet being such a big part of the community? Have either of you dealt with this kind of thing?” Oh my God. Oh my gosh. I am so annoyed with this crap. This is so silly. Damned if people that act like this even have a clue some of the actual evolutionary proof that we have that people are actually adapted to eat certain things where other people are not, dairy being one of them. It’s just so ridiculous and it’s just people thinking they know everything because they have an internet connection. I don’t know everything. I don’t know anything about a lot of things. There are just so many moving parts here…
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: And this person is so…I wouldn’t be friends with her paleo meet up group. I want to be friends with her. We can go eat cheese in the corner by ourselves.
Diane Sanfilippo: There was totally something that you just said that I was like, yeah, its like, that’s exactly what I’m thinking, but, here’s the thing. Yeah, this happens all the time. It doesn’t happen when they are really your friends, because your friends who understand the depth of your knowledge behind your choices allow you to make your concessions at your own will. So, for example, if I’m in Mexico, as I was… no, Hawaii.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: I wasn’t in Mexico. Bill and Haley were in Mexico! I thought..
Liz Wolfe: Wow.
Diane Sanfilippo: I felt like I was in Mexico. They were in Mexico, I was in Hawaii. We’re both eating corn tortillas at the same time.
Liz Wolfe: {gasp}
Diane Sanfilippo: And its one of those things, where, like, I’m not going to call them out, and be like, “You guys can’t be paleo anymore, you were eating corn tortillas!” You know, its something where, when you understand how food works in your own body, and you get to make that decision, its a level of respect that, you know, if you come to a meet up, and you know that people there are paleo or not paleo, whatever the deal is, you have to have a level of respect for people that they understand how to make these decisions. Now, of course, some of these meet ups, you may be at one that is for beginners, right, and maybe, if that’s the case, you might be confusing people who are just coming there to learn. Like, what is the basic paleo diet. Because, we do know that a basic, you know, paleo schtick that most people learn is grain-free, dairy-free, legume-free, sugar-free. It’s pretty strict and it’s very limited, and it’s really more based on trying to find help when you’ve got some really complicated stuff going on, and it’s not generally what I would say to somebody who already feels like they are healthy. Its not the way that everybody has to go, and I think you just show a level of disrespect for that person and for their own depth of knowledge when you immediately discount them and tell them, you know, make them feel like they don’t know what they are doing when the choose to eat cheese.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: I mean, it’s not like you brought a Twinkie to the table
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: And, you know, plopped down
Liz Wolfe: And shoved it in somebody else’s mouth!
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I mean, honestly, it shows a few things on the part of the other people, and you know, we see this a lot. It’s people who don’t understand the full depth of what we are talking about with a paleo template. Its people who don’t understand social graces at all {laughs} to some degree, you know. Let people eat what they are going to eat. Its really funny, because I almost feel like when I’m around my paleo friends, its actually more of a reason to eat something like ice cream, as crazy as that sounds, where its like, we all know that we don’t do this all the time. And even if we did, whatever. That’s our choice. But, its like we get together, and we’re like, okay, we’re going to kind of do this thing that we don’t do all the time, but we understand the implications, and we’re eating really high quality stuff, and you know, we have our own rationale for it, and that’s fine, but your rationale is your own decision, and…. I feel like that is almost a worst case scenario, is you go to a paleo meet up, you decide to eat something that is not strict paleo, and then people freak out. I have to say, too, this happened a couple of years ago. I was with some of the Paleo NYC folks, a really small group of them, I feel like I was with Melissa McEwan, maybe John Durant, maybe Chris Masterjohn at the time. This was like, the head honchos of the Paleo NYC crew, and literally, like, 2 different people decided to eat gluten that night. I was like, you know what, I haven’t had this in a really long time. And it was almost like, the opposite of what this girl experienced, where we became this safe environment of like, you know what? Go for it. Tell us how you feel. You know, it’s kind of like, you do it and report back to me, because we knew that that person made an educated decision for themselves. I just think there is that level of respect that is obviously missing in that scenario, so. You know, do I think its part of the internet being a big part of the community? I do. I think its part of the community just growing so, so rapidly, and people wanting to cling to dogma, and pretend like that is the end-all, be-all of anything. I don’t think there is like, like you said, there’s no list of, you know, you have to eat the following foods for the rest of your life and never eat these foods for the rest of your life in order to be healthy or to be smart about being healthy. That’s not how it is.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh, I love what you just said about being smart about being healthy.
Diane Sanfilippo: Right?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I feel like I was mean before, because I was in a place at one point in my life where I was a rule book, but I never passed judgment on anybody else.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Not that way.
Diane Sanfilippo: You have no idea. You just don’t know… and this was, like, to the opposite side of things, this paleo treats post that I keep talking about, it’s almost done. I keep having to go back to it and make sure that I say everything that I want to say, but, for the people who are like, the anti-paleo treats people, and I want to smack them around, because I’m like, look, maybe you can enjoy a gluten brownie twice a year. There are people who cannot ever have that, ever. Or maybe you just don’t care. Maybe you’re not interested in those things. And so, people get on a high horse about a paleo brownie, or you know a grain-free brownie not being okay, or it just makes them angry. To that, I want to be like, first of all, calm the heck down.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Like, everybody, just calm down. Like, if this bothers you, don’t eat it. {laughing} Its okay, nobody cares if you don’t eat it, but there are a lot of people out there that, they want this thing and they are doing something that, you know, they can’t eat the other stuff. They are a lot sicker than you maybe are so they can’t eat that. Anyway, I get really mad when people get mad at the paleofied treats, because I’m just like, calm yourselves. {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m like, let other people do what they are doing, and move on with their life. I think it sucks that whatever meet up that was that that happened. I think it shows that the leader of that meet up is really a little bit possibly underdeveloped in their thinking, and I think its fair, to maybe say something, you know, have an intelligent conversation about the choice, because what if there are some people who are new and trying to learn about paleo. It is important that they know that for a lot of people, we do think that dairy can be problematic, especially really crappy quality dairy. You know, the stuff that most people are eating on sandwiches down the street every day, versus a conscious decision to have a little bit of a high quality cheese once in a blue moon or every night. If you so desire.
Liz Wolfe: Or all day every day. I like what you said about its not replacing other sources of nourishment.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Because, I know my relationship with cheese, and what else, like dried mango, and sunflower seeds.
Diane Sanfilippo: I ate a whole bag of dried mango yesterday. An entire bag.
Liz Wolfe: I have never not eaten all of the dried mango.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: However much is there {laughs} that is what is going to get eaten in one sitting.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, my mom was at Trader Joe’s, and she asked me what I wanted and that was on the list, and she’s like “just one bag?” I’m like, oh yes. {laughs} just one bag.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Because the other night it was one pint of Jeni’s salty caramel ice cream, and I ate all of it. Gums and all, whatever is in there.
Liz Wolfe: You know what, actually, though. I’ve been learning a little bit more about resistant starch and just kind of dipping my toe in that pool. There’s really not a whole lot wrong with tapioca starch, potato starch. It actually has some kind of interesting properties as far as feeding the gut bacteria.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: I’m not giving you permission to tapioca starch {laughs} wrapped around Jeni’s ice cream.
Diane Sanfilippo: No, but they can be prebiotic, and if you have issues with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, perhaps not the best, but if you don’t, they actually can be helpful. Another thing I want to tell you…I’m just going to say this again for the 40 millionth time to the people who don’t like us chit-chatting; just, I’m sorry. Maybe this is not the podcast for you.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: If we don’t enjoy what we’re doing, we’re not going to do it. So there’s going to be episodes that are a little more straight talk, we’re interviewing people, whatever. I actually think it’s a lesson to the interviews you’ve done, so I’ll have to listen to “my own” podcast. But, I’ve been listening to Alton Brown’s podcast, which I very much enjoy as a foodie nerd, and he had someone on talking about ice cream. This guy was making artisan ice cream in Atlanta, and it was really cool to hear him talk about things like invert sugar, which I had no idea what that even was, I would probably see it on the label and put it back down, and he was talking about how it does something where it increases sweetness without increasing the sugar content, and there’s just a whole lot of science about the texture, and all these different things. Again, I’m not going to eat a pint of this stuff every single day, it’s a health food. I’m not one of those people. But, I thought it was really interested when I started to learn about why they used these ingredients, and what they do with the ice cream and the texture and all of that. It started to make it seem a little less scary and weird, if that makes sense.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: And he was saying how they make the invert sugar, like whatever they do it; I actually can’t remember because I was cooking something else at the time, and was sort of halfway paying attention.
Liz Wolfe: You were making a paleo brownie?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I don’t know what I was making.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: It was really good. But, it was just really interesting because I just had a different respect for the whole process, and what might happen with what I used to think were weird, funky ingredients. Anyway.
Liz Wolfe: The book …
Diane Sanfilippo: Can you hear me?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. The book on…
Diane Sanfilippo: Did I lose you?
Liz Wolfe: {sigh} Not that I know of. Hello?
Diane Sanfilippo: Can you hear me now?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Good.
Liz Wolfe: This stuff is pretty cool. But just because people don’t know something doesn’t mean that its not a fact that exists in the world, you know?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: The dogma. And it got that way in Crossfit for a little bit, too. At least for me. I’m not going to a gym anymore.. But
Diane Sanfilippo: You’re doing Farm-Fit now.
Liz Wolfe: I’m doing Farm-fit! I’m lifting buckets.
Diane Sanfilippo: Trademark! Nobody steal that!
Liz Wolfe: Its the Rocky workout. Chasing chickens. Like, every once in a while I’ll do that just for the heck of it. But, I forgot what I was even talking about. Anyway, the… I don’t know. Forget it. What was I even saying? There is a whole world of information out there. Our podcaster, the interview I did with Katy Bowman from Aligned and Well. Dang! I mean, she… I feel like she knows 99%, you know, I know 1% of what I’m supposed to know, and the other 99% is lurking in Katy Bowman’s brain.
Diane Sanfilippo: {Laughs}
Liz Wolfe: There is just so much more out there to know. So much more out there. And when we think we know everything, that is the moment when you need to understand that you know nothing. I don’t know …
Diane Sanfilippo: Word.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, word. I don’t know.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: I give none of the craps.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I mean. She can come to Paleo FX or one of those events, and everybody will be at Lick, in Austin, eating ice cream, and nobody will tell you that you can’t be there. And those are the people who are, you know, sort of leading the community. Okay, so, you know, take a note from that book, I guess, of this is how people who really study this stuff and really learn about it all the time, this is kind of how we treat things. We’re not dogmatic or whatever.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah!
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: {pew pew pew}
Diane Sanfilippo: Thinning hair.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} This is more like a radio show. This is not a straight up info podcast.
Diane Sanfilippo: Its like your morning drive.
Liz Wolfe: Its Afentra
Diane Sanfilippo: Its Diane Sanfilippo, Liz Wolfe, and her farm zoo. Its like, the morning zoo in New York City. Ephedra, what?
Liz Wolfe: Afentra, this Big Fat Morning Buzz.
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know what that is.
Liz Wolfe: Don’t worry about it.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ephedra? Ephedramine?
Liz Wolfe: Ephedramine? {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {Laughs}
4. Thinning Hair (29:28)
Liz Wolfe: I can’t. Oh my gosh. Alright. Next up. Question. This is about thinning hair. “I’ve been doing paleo for about 10 months now, and I love your page, as it has been very helpful. Though I have a weird question, and wonder if it is something you can help me with. I’ve noticed that since I’ve started paleo, my hair has gotten significantly thinner. Do you know if this is a normal occurrence for people doing paleo? I used to eat a significant amount of dairy and grains, etc. Any advice would be helpful.” This is one of those where we don’t have a whole ton of information, but we were talking about this off the air. This is not normal, but it is something that we’ve heard people say with interesting frequency, and there are a couple of things, Diane, I know that you have to say about this. But I do want to say, we do need to pay really special attention to digestion. Especially when people are going through life with a lot of easily digested food. Basically dairy and grains; modern dairy and grains are basically predigested. You know, they are pasteurized, homogenized, broken down, and you are basically eating something that is already broken down for you and they are not good for you but they are very quick to digest and disseminate in your body. So, with that, and also knowing that if you eat certain things for long periods of time, your body does find ways to adapt and compensate and get what they need from those foods, whether it is from those foods or whether it is actually stealing it from your body, your body finds ways to compensate for whatever it might be lacking on whatever you were eating before. So then you change your diet and you’re getting all this great nutrition; you might be eating food that is a lot different with regards to getting broken down in your body and getting digested. You know, meat is not pre-chewed food, dude. You know? It’s something that your body has to disassemble and digest, and that’s not to say it’s hard to digest, it is to say it must be digested. And before this, these foods, dairy and grains, are not foods that require our natural digestive process. So, I think that I would definitely look at digestive support, making sure you are chewing really well, making sure your stomach acid is up to par so you can get those building blocks for beautiful, lustrous hair. Yeah, that was what I had to say. Diane, I know you have a lot on this topic.
Diane Sanfilippo: Not a lot, but I think one of the things we see happen pretty often, and this is sort of; I feel like I’m going to coin this term because I’ve said it a few times, and I brought it up on the low-carb cruise this past year where I talked about who low-carb might not be good for. {laughs} It was not the most popular talk on the cruise.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing} But anyway. And actually, that talk, a version of it, you can hear on the Real Food Con, Sean Croxton has coming up this Real Food Con, its like a summit event, so I kind of talked about that on there if you are curious. But I think if you become an accidental low-carber; if you accidentally go low-carb because you switched to a paleo diet, and you forget that you were getting, not only a whole spectrum of nutrients from food that had more carbohydrates in them, and I don’t really mean just the grains, I mean starches in general, whether its carbohydrates or just getting some more B vitamins, vitamin C, remembering to up your intake of those foods when you make the switch, because a lot of people do move to sort of chicken, broccoli, and coconut oil, or they do a lot of protein and fat and forget about carbs, and you know, it doesn’t mean that your body can’t do fine without a lot of carbohydrates. Some people do, some people don’t. But that jarring sort of shift where all of a sudden you basically just immediately go to this really low carb approach, which maybe it’s 50-100 grams a day, if you are not eating grains and you are not really specifically avoiding carbs, that is probably where you will fall unless you are trying to eat more. It can be a stressor to the body, just that change in and of itself can be a stressor, and hair loss isn’t something that you get stress today and your hair falls out tomorrow. It begins to happen typically what I’ve seen is at least a month later, if not sometimes even longer. I’ve had some people who have talked to dermatologists about these problems, and they’ve said, even like a few months later, so a lot of times people have to think back to some kind of major stress that happened in their lives. I’m not saying that the change in diet has nothing to do with it, but you might also want to consider, if anything else changes or if anything else was stressful for you over this time. I think a lot of times people make a dietary change and something else changes in their life, and any other physiological change that happens they immediately attribute it to the diet as opposed to some other stressor. That’s just something to be aware of. That’s kind of my thought there. You know, if she was eating a lot of dairy, a lot of grains, maybe look at getting some of those carbs back in, perhaps she was getting some B vitamins from the grains before. That is one of the things besides minerals which we know that most of us aren’t absorbing a lot of the minerals in grains because of the antinutrients, but perhaps there were some B vitamins, and now she is missing out on some of those. You know, she can do some liver to try and get B vitamins, or fermented cod liver oil, which we like. And if she was eating a lot of dairy, you know, she could have been getting fortified forms that had more vitamin A and D added to them. Now, we know those aren’t the ideal forms of vitamin A and D, but you’re still getting some of it, but maybe you’re not getting a lot of it now, so again some of the nutrient deficiencies, digestive support as Liz mentioned, can help. But really just looking at getting this other spectrum of nutrients in. If she tolerates dairy well, trying some grass fed dairy, grass fed yogurt could be a good one. Grass fed butter, grass fed cheese. Everything just depends on her system. But, those are kind of the things that I would look at.
Liz Wolfe: Raw milk, yo! But that’s not paleo! {pew pew pew}
Diane Sanfilippo: And I’m going to remind people again when I tried to drink raw milk, I felt like I was constantly on the verge of getting a sinus infection, and I was like, why do I keep feeling like I’m getting sick, but I don’t get sick? Like it never would develop. I was eating raw cheese and drinking raw milk, and I don’t do well with those. Goat cheese seems to be like one of the only things I can really do.
Liz Wolfe: Come over, I’ll have some goat cheese.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yes! I’m going to tell you right now my vampire acne has been very calm, and I haven’t really eaten many almonds, which is probably one of the only types of nuts that I can handle because I can’t eat walnuts or pecans, I’m allergic to those. But I just ate these almond flour muffins I decided to make tonight, because I have like 50 new paleo books sitting here, and I was like, “I feel like making something with these bananas that are turning black.” {laughs} so I made these muffins and they were largely almond flour, so let’s see what happens in the next few days if my vampire acne comes back.
Liz Wolfe: Speaking of vampire acne, I want you to know that I’m recording this when I could be watching the premiere of Vampire Diaries.
Diane Sanfilippo: Okay. I don’t feel bad.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, you don’t care.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Is that on Hulu?
Liz Wolfe: No, its on {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Anyway.
Liz Wolfe: Its on the regular TV.
Diane Sanfilippo: Vampire acne is on… its on regular television? I don’t even know what that is anymore.
Liz Wolfe: I know.
Diane Sanfilippo: Its like right on my lymph nodes on my neck right where a vampire would bite you, I presume, so that’s why I call it vampire acne. Anyway.
Liz Wolfe: See, you know a lot about pop culture.
Diane Sanfilippo: Vampires are pop culture?
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Yes. {sarcasm}
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m pretty sure they’re like, not pop culture.
Liz Wolfe: Oh.
Diane Sanfilippo: Now they are, but.
Liz Wolfe: Um, well. Somebody was telling me that I don’t sound very smart when I talk about vampires, and I want to say, do you even know the volume of incredible, like, true fiction that has been written about vampires and about, you know, fantasy related subject matter? I might joke about it, but I’m telling you, there is some good literature out there that is well worth reading.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think having a breath of exposure to things like social… social media. {sarcasm} No. Things like pop culture, different cultural references and having a sense of humor is actually a greater sign of intelligence than a lot of other things, so there.
Liz Wolfe: Boom. Okay, cool.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Let’s move on. Extemporaneous. Jugular. Juxtaposition. Big words.
Diane Sanfilippo: Interrobang.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} My favorite.
5. Adrenal fatigue (38:40)
Liz Wolfe: Oh my. Alright. Next up. Adrenal fatigue confusion. This is from Mary. “I keep reading all about adrenal fatigue, and I feel like everything I read makes me think I have it. How do I know? What are some symptoms? Should I be worried about it?” It sounds like Mary is tired.
Diane Sanfilippo: She has WebMD syndrome. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughing} Adrenal fatigue is your wheelhouse.
Diane Sanfilippo: For more than one reason. Okay. I want to, okay, I’m going to pop this retainer back out. {pop} I’ve had these retainers out for too long today.
Liz Wolfe: This is a banner podcast, by the way.
Diane Sanfilippo: I know.
Liz Wolfe: Your retainer.
Diane Sanfilippo: Because it’s now 10 p.m. and we should not be up this late. Sorry about that.
Liz Wolfe: Ladies and gentleman, the Balanced Bites podcast. Vampires, retainers…
Diane Sanfilippo: Come for the humor, stay for the…..vampire? Okay, so, adrenal fatigue. The confusion that comes up with this, I think, is that… this is another good nugget people. Adrenal fatigue is not really the problem, its just a sign that something else is wrong. You know, its sort of the…its the red flag. its the sign that you can actually see and feel that there is something going on in your body that is putting your….its essentially putting your neurotransmitters, your entire brain chemistry out of balance and telling your adrenal glands to do something that is not normal. Whether it is telling them to, like, put on the brakes and just stop outputting enough cortisol and you’re flat lining and you are just exhausted, or its telling them put out a lot more cortisol this is a stress situation and we need to demand more, or whether it has been in that state where it is demanding so much for so long that you just really burn out. But it doesn’t just happen just because. Its not like…you don’t really just get there from… I don’t even know how to more easily say it. You don’t just get there for no reason. Its not like all of a sudden, I have adrenal fatigue. You can experience this for reasons of overstress and overtraining and things like that. When I say overtraining, it really just means not giving yourself enough time to recover from what you have done. If you are doing intense exercise like Crossfit, and you want to do it 7 days a week and you never have a day off, and you never deload, and you never give your body a little bit of a break, you know, months and months on end, you have no season with your training like other sports might have, and it can just be too much for your system. The same thing happens really, really often with endurance training. You know, we sometimes hate on endurance training; I don’t really hate on it. I sort of hate on it for the reasons that people forget that they need to not just do long hard runs all of the time. Like, same thing with Crossfit. People just forget that they need to recover.
Liz Wolfe: I was just reading a running blog about a girl who has to get a hip replacement, and she’s going to run the Boston Marathon and the New York, I don’t know when this blog post was written.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: She’s going to run two marathons anyway because if the hip is going to go, its going to go! Might as well go while she’s doing something she loves. That’s in Crossfit, that’s in running, that’s everywhere. People being stupid.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. And you know, its really funny because I am one of those people where I have trained in so many ways for so long that I just inherently hold myself back a lot more. I did that one half-marathon 8 years ago, got injured. IT band strain really, really badly, and tried to recover from it. It took forever. Then I had some inflammation in my foot that finally went away after I changed my diet. But it was like, I didn’t push it and try and run more because it hurt like crazy! It was just… this pain is telling you, your body is telling you don’t do that! You know, people want to push through pain a lot, and you know, one of the kinds of pains its okay to push through is like muscle soreness, a light soreness that you just, you move a little bit and it actually feels better. But when you are feeling like, strain and injury, stop! Don’t be a fool about it. I just don’t understand that mindset, but the same thing happens with stress on our system from a lot of other things. So, whether it is years of eating nutrient depleted foods, years of eating foods that are dangerous to our system, things like soy products, or just the fake foods in general, you know. I’m not going to say that there’s just one thing that is doing this, but I know a lot of people who say they went through a vegetarian stint, right, and they ate tons of safe-ham and tons of soy protein, “foods”, and then after that they are dealing with thyroid problems. Well, your thyroid not working properly is going to send a stress signal to the rest of your body, the fact that your thyroid is not working. That can result in this adrenal fatigue situation. So, anything that is going on. You can have a really bad flu, and then be dealing with adrenal fatigue just because of that acute stressor of that illness. So its really anything that upsets the natural balance in your system, and your body is not the same as the person’s next to you, and how much you can handle is different from how much they can handle before they deal with this fatigue situation. So, you know, there are all these other things that we do and that we deal with, and we never can put our finger on how much its hurting our body until we deal with something like adrenal fatigue and now we have this name for it, right, of just this physical exhaustion. It can be where you are tired and wired, where you wake up in the morning and you are just tired, then at night you are wired, and that can be an adrenal fatigue situation where your adrenal glands are not working on the right circadian rhythm schedule, or it can be where you are flat-lining all day, you just need to pump in the caffeine all day long, and not necessarily talking about what happens when you’re writing a book, but writing a book is horrible for your health! Don’t do it if you just want to be healthy, because the amount of mental stress and anguish that you go through results in physical stress. So, that’s something that until you do it you don’t understand it. Until you do any of these things. Just like probably becoming a parent, right? Until you do it, you don’t understand how stressful that is. The lack of sleep; all of that. And the reason why our health can suffer is because of these other stressors. Its not that adrenal fatigue is your problem. There is something else going on in your body that is putting you out of balance; whether it is something you are doing physically, whether it is an infection you have, whether its a food intolerance you haven’t figure out, whether you are not getting enough sleep; any of those things. Nutrient deficiencies, and so, you know, for a lot of people I’m sure that sounds really scary. Like, oh shoot, how do I figure out which it is? You have to just go through the checklist. You have to do what you know is right to do. Last year, after Practical Paleo was done and off to print, I started taking a lot of different supplements, because I needed to help myself get back on track. I tried to focus on my sleep. I was taking some adrenal herbs, some adaptogens. I was drinking some licorice root tea. I remember being at the Crossfit Games, so this was the 2012 games, I guess, and I had like 2 or 3 times a day doses of different supplements, vitamins, minerals, herbs, and all that kind of stuff, just really trying to help my system get back, and not pushing myself too hard at the gym, because if you find that a hard workout leaves you exhausted for the rest of the day, or it leaves you unable to recover for like 3 days. And you guys who are listening, this may sound crazy to you, but I had a client a couple of years ago who would tell me she was totally addicted to teaching these cardio classes, I don’t remember what they were, but she would tell me, it was like she was making this confession, she felt like something was so wrong with her she couldn’t tell her other cardio friends that she would teach a class and then be on the couch for the whole day, and the next day be exhausted, and maybe by that second or third day start to come back. And she’s like, I literally felt like the wind was knocked out of me. And I was trying to explain to her that it’s been too much for too long. And the thing that people don’t understand is that the too much for too long is different for everyone. So the really common reaction to that is, like, probably a lot of people who do a lot of intense cardio stuff or any kind of training or, you know not sleeping a lot, or whatever it is. “Well, I’ve always been this way.” Or “I’ve always done this.” And that’s just because, you know what, you’ve been pushing your body for so long, today is the day it decided to tell you enough is enough. And that is really what it comes down to. So, you know, we really have to figure out checking off that list of all the things you kind of know you should be doing. Sleep, and checking out the food and all that, and then you can get into some of that more complex stuff, whether or not you’ve got an infection, or hidden food intolerances, things like that. Short question. Long answer.
6. Dry Aging Skin (48:32)
Liz Wolfe: That’s alright! That’s okay. It looks like Diane might have actually just dropped off the call, but we just had one question left, and this one was for me, so I’ll go ahead and finish this whole deal up myself. Sorry Diane! We miss you. Alright, so this final question is from B; dry aging skin. “Liz, help me! Hi ladies! Love you, and I’m ever so grateful for the chuckles and education you drop on a weekly basis. Question is for Liz about skin, who, by the way lives the radical paleo-ista award in my book for getting her hands dirty and homesteading. Extra points for tick wrangling.” Well, thank you, B. “About the skin. I hear you speak frequently about the gut-skin axis, mostly referring to breakouts and such, but my skin woes are of the dry type. I’m a 33-year-old female engaged to be married, and want to get my skin looking fresh before the big day. I’m working on the inner beauty stuff, also, don’t fret. I have really dry skin, and some signs of aging, which I know won’t just disappear, but how do I best move forward? I spent many years traveling to surf, so I was exposed to some very intense frequent sun in my 20s. I eat pretty darn clean, no gluten, lots of vegetables, avocados, meat, eggs, etc. I am hypothyroid on NDT. I’ve been using Skin Trip lotion, I’m sure I’ll get blasted for that. I seem to be sensitive to coconut oil on my face; I get little spots around my mouth and reddened around the eyes. I pretty much just rinse my face off at night, no soap. No real skin routine, but I want one. Please help me out. What skin treatments do you recommend for dry, aging skin?” Alright. Well, I talk at length in my book, my upcoming book, which, as I said at the beginning of the podcast, there are some changes coming up to that, so stay tuned for that. But I talk at length about the differences between vitamin D generating sun exposure and the type of exposure that can actually cause damage. I think we paleo people, we like to feel, or at least I at times like to feel as if sun exposure of any kind is beneficial and we are kind of bucking conventional wisdom and not using any sun protection in the form of clothing or non-carcinogenic super nerdy physical sunblock because we want to get that good vitamin D from the sun, and we know that conventional sunscreens and, chemical sunscreens, avobenzone, oxybenzone, and all that are really not all they are cracked up to be at all. But, there is a reality that too much sun exposure over time really does do damage at the DNA level. So, it may just be an unfortunately reality that B’s skin has been damaged pretty intensely due to the sun exposure and that it is contributing to these signs of aging, including the persistent dryness. That said, hypothyroid can also contribute to skin dryness. It has to do with the slow metabolic rate, which actually ends up affecting the sebaceous glands. Ideally, the sebaceous glands secrete enough oil to keep the skin nice and moisturized from the inside. If you’ve got other indicators that the hypo is affecting the skin, like brittle nails or scaly areas, that is a pretty good sign that this could be a result of the hypo. In that case; well, of course, in any case, it’s important to continue with treatment as prescribed by your naturopath or your doctor, whatever. Eating the most nutrient dense foods possible that are appropriate for you, etc. etc. Okay, so let’s get back to the damaged skin from external factors. A nutrient that I’m really geeked out on right now, and yet another reason that I love my sardines, is because they have taurine in abundance. Sardines also have selenium, vitamin D, omega-3s, and all that. So taurine is actually pretty well studied for its topical effects, specifically on damaged and dry skin, so taurine may be at least in part that key in the lock when it comes to working on repairing and undoing skin damage. We can get taurine from food, like I said, which I think is really, really important. And again, with sardines, you also get the other skin loving cofactors like selenium. So if you tolerate sea food, which not everybody does, and when it comes to thyroid disorders, depending on the cause, a person may or may not want to do that. But at this point I’m curious; I am curious, actually, about looking for a good, clean topical treatment that contains taurine. I have yet to find anything like that, so if anyone knows of anything please do reach out to me and let me know. I should just start my own skin care line. Other than that, diet wise, I’d look at incorporating and possibly even supplementing consistently with a sustainably sourced red palm oil, which contains vitamin E, the full complex carotenoids, which I never recommend taking supplements for. Red palm oil is really the only source of that full E complex, natural E complex as well as a full spectrum of carotenoids. Do not go supplementing with a pill or a bottled source of vitamin E or carotenoids, because they just don’t work the same way in your body as a natural source like red palm oil. I’ll probably talk a little bit more about red palm oil eventually on my blog. Its a really touchy area, because there are so many problems with sustainability and the way red palm oil is harvested, but there are a few sources that are sustainably ethically sourced, so look for that. I’d probably also look at incorporating turmeric when you can. You can even do turmeric topically. You can do red palm oil topically, as well, but they are very, very orangey red, so it just kind of depends on what you are into. But when it comes to tumeric, eat some Indian food. Incorporate some of those spices, those traditional spices that are really powerful internal actors. Topically, everybody knows I really like oils. As B said, not everybody tolerates coconut oil. She’s not alone in that. Some people, you know, they think coconut oil is just this miracle topical oil, and other people it just doesn’t work for. So, I think that the oil deal is really important. I’m trying to think, the infinity line from Primal Life Organics is kind of that gourmet, like really stacked nourishing facial oil. I know, I can respect that not everybody wants to spend that kind of money, so you know you can look at just trying some hemp, like some hemp seed oil, maybe some other oils just individually. You could also do just that grass fed tallow that I like so much and that people are using. I think that would be really, really helpful. And it’s fabulous under makeup; I don’t know if you wear makeup, but its a really good, really quality moisturizer. You can get it from Real Skin Products, which is a co-venture, I guess, of Pete’s Paleo, and I think if this shows airs in October, there should be a discount code for Real Skin Products, it should be BALANCEDBITESROCKS, so you could try that. You could try the tallow from Vintage Tradition, that’s good stuff. Try that. Another thing topically, when it comes to like caring and trying to reverse lifestyle damage from sun exposure and stress and all that, vitamin C is a really key topical nutrient. The biggest problem is, though, like with most vitamin C serums, these products have a really short window when you can use them and the potency stays where it was when it is first produced. So, the vitamin C, and depending on its mode of delivery, loses potency really rapidly, so you’ve got to use it up, probably within about 30 days from the time you buy it or the time it’s shipped to you. That is why these serums generally come in small bottles. I used to have this {laughs} skin care insecurity complex where I felt like all my favorite products, oh my gosh, are going to be gone from the world all of a sudden one day, and so I would order like 10 at a time, but they come in small bottles for a reason, {laughs} because you really do want to use them up before the potency is lost. That is actually another thing that Trina at <a href="http:/