Why Going Gluten-Free Could Be A Bad Idea
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Is A Gluten-Free Diet Right For You?
This is Rachel Begun, MS, RD. She’s a nutritionist who, since her own diagnosis with Celiac disease, has shifted her career into a position of educating the public (and correcting misconceptions) about gluten sensitivity, wheat allergy, and Celiac disease. In short, the whole “gluten-free” field.
First, a quick recap
We’ve written on this topic ourselves before; here’s what we had to say:
On “Everyone should go gluten-free”
Some people who have gone gluten-free are very evangelical about the lifestyle change, and will advise everyone that it will make them lose weight, have clearer skin, more energy, and sing well, too. Ok, maybe not the last one, but you get the idea—a dietary change gets seen as a cure-all.
And for some people, it can indeed make a huge difference!
Begun urges us to have a dose of level-headedness in our approach, though.
Specifically, she advises:
- Don’t ignore symptoms, and/but…
- Don’t self-diagnose
- Don’t just quit gluten
One problem with self-diagnosis is that we can easily be wrong:
But why is that a problem? Surely there’s not a health risk in skipping the gluten just to be on the safe side? As it turns out, there actually is:
If we self-diagnose incorrectly, Begun points out, we can miss the actual cause of the symptoms, and by cheerfully proclaiming “I’m allergic to gluten” or such, a case of endometriosis, or Hashimoto’s, or something else entirely, might go undiagnosed and thus untreated.
“Oh, I feel terrible today, there must have been some cross-contamination in my food” when in fact, it’s an undiagnosed lupus flare-up, that kind of thing.
Similarly, just quitting gluten “to be on the safe side” can mask a different problem, if wheat consumption (for example) contributed to, but did not cause, some ailment.
In other words: it could reduce your undesired symptoms, but in so doing, leave a more serious problem unknown.
Instead…
If you suspect you might have a gluten sensitivity, a wheat allergy, or even Celiac disease, get yourself tested, and take professional advice on proceeding from there.
How? Your physician should be able to order the tests for you.
You can also check out resources available here:
Celiac Disease Foundation | How do I get tested?
Or for at-home gluten intolerance tests, here are some options weighed against each other:
MNT | 5 gluten intolerance tests and considerations
Want to learn more?
Begun has a blog:
Rachel Begun | More than just recipes
(it is, in fact, just recipes—but they are very simple ones!)
You also might enjoy this interview, in which she talks about gluten sensitivity, celiac disease, and bio-individuality:
Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later
Take care!
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Why You’re Tired & How To Fix It
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This is Sadia Badiei. A dietician by academic and professional background, she’s nowadays hung up her lab coat for a chef’s jacket, and is best known for her “Pick Up Limes” brand. Today, we’ll be taking her advice on managing energy levels with what’s on our plates!
Quick note: our usual medical/legal disclaimer applies, and this article cannot diagnose you from afar, and thus neither can it make any certain prescription; this is for educational purposes, and aimed at being applicable to most of our readers.
There are many possible things that can cause chronic fatigue, and not all of them can be fixed by diet. Your doctor will have access to tests and such that we, being a humble health science publication, do not.
You may recognize her; we’ve featured her videos occasionally, mostly recently:
Pick Up A Zest For Life: 10 Lessons For A Healthy Mind & Body
But, what does she want us to know about living life with more energy?
It starts with balance
Badiei makes the case that we should strive for a nutritionally-balanced diet; that may not come as much of a revelation, but what does that look like for a vegan (Badiei advocates for plant-based eating)?
She recommends that our diet consist of:
- About 50% fruits and vegetables
- About 25% grains and starches
- About 25% proteins
- Modest amounts of fats
- A little of well-chosen dairy substitutions
- Finally, a few judicious supplements to top it off
That does add up to more than 100%, but 1) we did say “About n%” and 2) this is not a bad thing to note, actually, since Badiei advocates (as we do) for focussing more on what we add into our diet, rather than what we take out.
Breaking it down a little further, she recommends making sure to get “the foundational seven”, which is a little like “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen”, but in this case it’s counted on a per-food-type basis.
Thus, she recommends:
- Dark green leafy vegetables
- Assorted other non-starchy vegetables (your choice what kind)
- Fruit, of any kinds (unlike Dr. Greger separating berries)
- Grains and starches (so for example, potatoes are lumped in with rice here, botanically very different, but often fulfil a similar culinary role)
- Nuts and seeds
- Legumes
- Fortified dairy alternatives
For full details including how much of each, and “what counts”, etc, see:
Pick Up Limes | The Nourish Method
Time your carbs
Slow-release carbohydrates, those with the most fiber, are best most of the time, giving us more sustained fuel, keeping us energized for longer after meals—even if we would rather sleep:
She cites: Fiber and Saturated Fat Are Associated with Sleep Arousals and Slow Wave Sleep
Quick-release carbohydrates, those with what’s generally considered a less favorable carb:fiber ratio, are best if we’re going to eat nearer to bedtime. We know, eating before bed is often considered a bit of a no-no, but Badiei bids us indulge if we so desire, as the quicker-absorbed carbohydrates support tryptophan reaching our brain more efficiently, and thus promote sleep onset.
See also: Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?
About that fat
We mentioned (or rather, Badiei’s citation mentioned) saturated fat. It is indeed linked with difficulty falling asleep, and/but omega-3 fatty acids, on the other hand, promote better sleep.
She cites: The relationship between sleep duration, sleep quality and dietary intake in adults
While you’re enjoying those nuts and seeds (for the omega-3 fatty acids), you might also note that several also star in Badiei’s list of plant-based foods that are rich in tryptophan, such as soy, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, beans, green vegetables, and mushrooms.
Micronutrients
Badiei’s focus here is on B-vitamins, iron, magnesium, selenium, and zinc. We imagine most of our readers here are taking steps to ensure to get a full daily coverage of vitamins and minerals anyway, but you might want to read what she has to say about iron on a plant-based diet, because the numbers may be different than you think.
The reason for this is that while animal products contain mostly heme iron, which is easier to absorb but associated with a risk increase in some diseases, plant-based foods usually* contain only non-heme iron, which is healthier but not as bioavailable, so if eating only plants, we need more of it:
Pick Up Limes | Iron on a Plant-Based Diet
*If you eat a carnivorous plant, guess what, it’ll have heme iron in it, tangling that food web.
“What if I know I have chronic fatigue for non-dietary reasons?”
Well, that sucks, and we’re not going to pretend the above will magically fix it. However, there are still things that can at least relatively improve your experience:
Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue! Yes, Even When Fatigued Chronically
(it’s a good guide to being able to consistently eat healthily when your energy levels are consistently at minimal, meaning that a lot of common advice becomes unusable)
Take care!
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Body Image Dissatisfaction/Appreciation Across The Ages
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Every second news article about body image issues is talking about teens and social media use, but science tells a different story.
A large (n=1,327) study of people of mixed genders aged 16–88 examined matters relating to people’s body image, expecting…
❝We hypothesized that body dissatisfaction and importance of appearance would be higher in women than in men, that body dissatisfaction would remain stable across age in women, and that importance of appearance would be lower in older women compared to younger women. Body appreciation was predicted to be higher in men than in women.❞
As they discovered, only half of that turned out to be true:
❝In line with our hypotheses, body dissatisfaction was higher in women than in men and was unaffected by age in women, and importance of appearance was higher in women than in men.
However, only in men did age predict a lower level of the importance of appearance. Compared to men, women stated that they would invest more hours of their lives to achieve their ideal appearance.
Contrary to our assumption, body appreciation improved and was higher in women across all ages than in men.❞
You can read the study in full here:
That’s a lot of information, and we don’t have the space to go into all parts of it here, fascinating as that would be. So we’re going to put two pieces of information (from the above) next to each other:
- body dissatisfaction was higher in women than in men and was unaffected by age in women
- body appreciation improved and was higher in women across all ages than in men
…and resolve this apparent paradox.
Dissatisfied appreciation
How is it that women are both more dissatisfied with, and yet also more appreciative of, their bodies?
The answer is that we can have positive and negative feelings about the same thing, without them cancelling each other out. In short, simply, feeling more feelings about it.
Whether the gender-related disparity in this case comes more from hormones or society could be vigorously debated, but chances are, it’s both. And, for our gentleman-readers, note that the principle still applies to you, even if scaled down on average.
Call to action:
- be aware of the negative feelings of body dissatisfaction
- focus on the positive feelings of body appreciation
While in theory both could motivate us to action, in reality, the former will tend to inform us (about what we might wish to change), while the latter will actually motivate us in a useful way (to do something positive about it).
This is because the negative feelings about body image tend to be largely based in shame, and shame is a useless motivator (i.e., it simply doesn’t work) when it comes to taking positive actions:
Why Shame Only Works Negatively
You can’t hate yourself into a body you love
That may sound like a wishy-washy platitude, but given the evidence on how shame works (and doesn’t), it’s true.
Instead, once you’ve identified the things about your body with which you’re dissatisfied, you can then assess:
- what can reasonably be changed
- whether it is important enough to you to change it
- how to go about usefully changing it
While weight issues are perhaps the most commonly-discussed body image consideration, to the point that often all others get forgotten, let’s look at something that’s generally more specific to adults, and also a very common cause of distress for women and men alike: hair loss/thinning.
If your hair is just starting to thin and fall, then if this bothers you, there’s a lot that can be done about it quite easily, but (and this is important) you have to love yourself enough to actually do it. Merely feeling miserable about it, and perhaps like you don’t deserve better, or that it is somehow a personal failing on your part, will not help.
If your hair has been gone for years, then chances are you’ve made your peace with this by now, and might not even take it back if a fairy godmother came along and offered to restore it magically. On the other hand, let’s say that you’re just coming out the other end of a 10-year-long depression, and perhaps you let a lot of things go that you now wish you hadn’t, and maybe your hair is one of them. In this case, now you need to decide whether getting implants (likely the only solution at this late stage) is worth it.
Note that in both cases, whatever the starting point and whether the path ahead is easy or hard, the person who has dissatisfaction and/but still values themself and their body will get what they need.
In contrast, the person who has dissatisfaction and does not value themself and their body, will languish.
The person without dissatisfaction, of course, probably already has what they need.
In short: identification of dissatisfaction + love and appreciation of oneself and one’s body → motivation to usefully take action (out of love, not hate)
Now, dear reader, apply the same thinking to whatever body image issues you may have, and take it from there!
Embodiment
A quick note in closing: if you are a person with no body dissatisfactions, there are two main possible reasons:
- You are genuinely happy with your body in all respects. Congratulations!
- You have disassociated from your body to such an extent that it’s become a mere vehicle to you and you don’t care about it.
This latter may seem like a Zen-level win, but in fact it’s a warning sign for depression, so please do examine that even if you don’t “feel” depressed (depression is often characterized by a lack of feelings), perhaps by taking the (very quick) free PHQ9 Test ← under 2 minutes; immediate results; industry-standard diagnostic tool
Take care!
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Rewire Your OCD Brain – by Dr. Catherine Pittman & Dr. William Youngs
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OCD is just as misrepresented in popular media as many other disorders, and in this case, it’s typically not “being a neat freak” or needing to alphabetize things, so much as having uncontrollable obsessive intrusive thoughts, and often in response to those, unwanted compulsions. This can come from unchecked spiralling anxiety, and/or PTSD, for example.
What Drs. Pittman & Young offer is an applicable set of solutions, to literally rewire the brain (insofar as synapses can be considered neural wires). Leveraging neuroplasticity to work with us rather than against us, the authors talk us through picking apart the crossed wires, and putting them back in more helpful ways.
This is not, by the way, a book of CBT, though it does touch on that too.
Mostly, the book explains—clearly and simply and sometimes with illustrations—what is going wrong for us neurologically, and how to neurologically change that.
Bottom line: whether you have OCD or suffer from anxiety or just need help dealing with obsessive thoughts, this book can help a lot in, as the title suggests, rewiring that.
Click here to check out Rewire Your OCD Brain, and banish obsessive thoughts!
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Hold Me Tight – by Dr. Sue Johnson
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A lot of relationship books are quite wishy-washy. This one isn’t.
This one is evidenced-based (and heavily referenced!), and yet at the same time as being deeply rooted in science, it doesn’t lose the human touch.
Dr. Johnson has spent her career as a clinical psychologist and researcher; she’s the primary developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), which has demonstrated its effectiveness in over 35 years of peer-reviewed clinical research. In other words, it works.
EFT—and thus also this book—finds roots in Attachment Theory. As such, topics this book covers include:
- Recognizing and recovering from attachment injury
- How fights in a relationship come up, and how they can be avoided
- How lot of times relationships end, it’s not because of fights, but a loss of emotional connection
- Building a lifetime of love instead, falling in love again each day
This book lays the groundwork for ensuring a strong, secure, ongoing emotional bond, of the kind that makes/keeps a relationship joyful and fulfilling.
Dr. Johnson has been recognized in her field with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Order of Canada.
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How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
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Overcoming Loneliness & Isolation
One of the biggest mental health threats that faces many of us as we get older is growing isolation, and the loneliness that can come with it. Family and friends thin out over the years, and getting out and about isn’t always as easy as it used to be for everyone.
Nor is youth a guaranteed protection against this—in today’s world of urban sprawl and nothing-is-walkable cities, in which access to social spaces such as cafés and the like means paying the rising costs with money that young people often don’t have… And that’s without getting started on how much the pandemic impacted an entire generation’s social environments (or lack thereof).
Why is this a problem?
Humans are, by evolution, social creatures. As individuals we may have something of a spectrum from introvert to extrovert, but as a species, we thrive in community. And we suffer, when we don’t have that.
What can we do about it?
We can start by recognizing our needs, such as they are, and identifying to what extent they are being met (or not).
- Some of us may be very comfortable with a lot of alone time—but need someone to talk to sometimes.
- Some of us may need near-constant company to feel at our best—and that’s fine too! We just need to plan accordingly.
In the former case, it’s important to remember that needing someone to talk to is not being a burden to them. Not only will our company probably enrich them too, but also, we are evolved to care for one another, and that itself can bring fulfilment to them as much as to you. But what if you don’t a friend to talk to?
- You might be surprised at who would be glad of you reaching out. Have a think through whom you know, and give it a go. This can be scary, because what if they reject us, or worse, they don’t reject us but silently resent us instead? Again, they probably won’t. Human connection requires taking risks and being vulnerable sometimes.
- If that’s not an option, there are services that can fill your need. For some, therapy might serve a dual purpose in this regard. For others, you might want to check out the list of (mostly free) resources at the bottom of this article
In the second case (that we need near-constant company to feel at our best) we probably need to look more at our overall lifestyle, and find ways to be part of a community. That can include:
- Living in a close-knit community (places with a lot of retirees in one place often have this; or younger folk might look at communal living/working spaces, for example)
- Getting involved in local groups (you can check out NextDoor.com or MeetUp.com for this)
- Volunteering for a charity (not only are acts of service generally fulfilling in and of themselves, but also, you will probably be working with other people of a charitable nature, and such people tend to make for good company!)
Need a little help?
There are many, many organizations that will love to help you (or anyone else) overcome loneliness and isolation.
Rather than list them all here and make this email very long by describing how each of them works, here’s a great compilation of resources:
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Dyslexia Test
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(and it’s mostly not about reading/writing!)
More than just shuffled letters
This video provides a self-test based on the Bangor Dyslexia Test (BDT). The BDT is 94% accurate in identifying dyslexia, and it includes 9 parts, with a mix of questions and tasks. Answering “yes” or struggling with tasks indicates possible dyslexia. Collecting 4+ indicators suggests dyslexia, but of course is not a replacement for official diagnosis.
It’s best to watch the video if you can, but here’s what to expect:
- Left-Right confusion: point your left hand to your right/left shoulder.
- Family history: any family members with dyslexia or struggles with reading/writing?
- Repeating numbers (order): repeat a given sequence of numbers in order.
- Letter confusion (e.g. b/d): do you confuse letters like “b” and “d” beyond age 8?
- Times tables: recite the 6, 7, and 8 times tables.
- Word manipulation: replace the letters in a word to create a new word, e.g. change “slide” (s ⇾ g) to “glide.”
- Repeating numbers (reversed): repeat a given sequence of numbers in reverse order.
- Months in reverse: recite the months of the year in reverse order.
- Subtraction: do you struggle with subtraction, e.g. 44-9 or 55-12?
Writer’s anecdote: I am not dyslexic, and/but I have an impressive level of dyscalculia (the purely numerical equivalent), to the point I’ll sometimes use a calculator to do single-digit calculations, and I am so bad at calculating ages or other differences between dates (I will have to count on my fingers or else run the severe risk of out-by-one errors). I have also been known to make mistakes counting down from 10, which really ruins dramatic tension.
In contrast, the left-right thing is interesting, because when I was first learning Arabic, I had no trouble reading/writing right-to-left, but I initially struggled so much to remember which way the “backspace” key would take me (in Arabic the backspace key backspaces to the right, despite still pointing to the left).
Anyway, for the test itself, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Reading, Better (Reading As A Cognitive Exercise)
Take care!
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