The following information is courtesy of Whole30.com and It Starts with Food.
Remember those 4 Good Food Standards outlined in It Starts with Food?
1. Promote a healthy psychological response - foods that do NOT promote a healthy psychological response light up pleasure, reward, and emotional pathways in the brain, offering super-normally stimulating flavors without providing the nutrition that nature intended. These are foods-with-no-breaks, promoting over consumption and the inability to control your cravings, habits, and behaviors.
2 - Promote a healthy hormonal response - foods that do NOT promote a healthy hormonal response disrupt your normal hormonal balance, promoting leptin resistance, insulin resistance (and all of the negative downstream effects that follow), disrupting glucagon's energy-access function and elevating cortisol levels.
3 - Support a healthy gut - foods that do NOT support a healthy gut directly promote intestinal permeability, leading to a less-than-intact barrier that lets foreign substances get inside the body (where they do not belong). Foods that fail this good food standard by default also fail the fourth.
4 - Support immune function and minimize inflammation - foods that do NOT support immune function and minimize inflammation by creating intestinal permeability (as mentioned above) or directly promoting chronic systemic inflammation force your immune system out of a healthy balance. This can lead to the development of systemic inflammatory symptoms or auto-immune diseases and is a central risk factor for many lifestyle related diseases or conditions.
Guess what? . . .
ALCOHOL FAILS ALL 4 GOOD FOOD STANDARDS!!
1. In terms of healthy psychological response, alcohol is addictive. It promotes the desire even in the face of negative consequences, tolerance to the effect of the substance, and withdrawal symptoms when use is reduced or stopped. Alcohol inhibits our inhibitory mechanisms. Which means that when you are under the influence, you are more likely to make bad decisions (with food.) In addition, how many times have you "rewarded" yourself with an alcoholic drink or happy hour?
2. From a hormonal perspective, alcohol consumption interferes with glucose function in the body and with the actions of regulatory hormones like insulin and glucagon. Even in well nourished people, alcohol can disturb blood sugar levels. Especially when combined with sugar, alcohol increases insulin secretion, which pulls too much blood sugar out of the blood stream, causing temporary hypoglycemia. Alcohol can impair glucagon's normal function, leaving your blood sugar levels too low for too long.
3. and 4. Alcohol directly promotes intestinal permeability and overgrowth of gut bacteria, contributing to a leaky gut and all of he downstream inflammatory effects. Both acute and chronic alcohol use impair cellular immunity, leaving your immune system even less prepared to deal with inflammatory consequences. Alcohol is also pro-oxidative, meaning that it contributes to oxidation in the body: it reduces antioxidant levels by increasing free radicals, which contributes to chronic systemic inflammation.
In short, alcohol has no redeeming health qualities.
Is it realistic to think that you'll never drink any alcohol ever again? Probably not; however, the above information is all about helping you to make informed and educated decisions about food. Instead of justifying your choices with marketing pitches or telling yourself that because it's gluten-free, low-carb, or heart-healthy (antioxidants in wine, anyone?) it's a perfectly healthy choice, you'll be able to tell yourself "This (fill in the blank) is not making me healthier, but that's OK, because it's delicious/special/culturally-relevant/emotionally significant." And when it comes to less-healthy foods, understand that the LESS you indulge in them, the healthier you'll be. Where you draw that line is totally up to you.
A FEW TIPS:
- If you're out with a group people and don't want to explain why you aren't drinking or deal with all the questions/comments about your choices, order a club soda with a lemon or lime in a cocktail glass. Does the trick every time!
- Plan your Whole30! Look at your calendar. If there is an event that you know will be VERY difficult to experience without drinking (a wedding, bachelor/bachelorette party, birthday, vacation, etc.) plan your Whole30 around this schedule. If you can't find 30 days on your calendar free of these "special events," start getting into the mindset now that you will not be drinking or eating what you typically might during this time, and remember that ALCOHOL WILL STILL EXIST IN 30 DAYS!
- Accountability! Plan to do your Whole30 with your spouse, significant other, co-worker, friends or a group who can help keep you accountable but also be there for company when it seems like everyone around you is drinking. You may find pretty quickly that you love waking up well-rested Saturday morning and have more productive weekends than you ever thought possible!
DAY 19 FOOD LOG:
Pre Camp - Apples, almond butter, turkey meatball
Pre Workout - shredded chicken
Post Workout/Meal 1 - Shredded chicken, eggs, pico
Meal 2 - Citrus pork carnitas, roasted Brussels and bacon, sweet potato fries
Meal 3 - Italian sausage meatballs over roasted spaghetti squash and RAO's marinara, roasted green beans
WATER ALL DAY (and La Croix)
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