After writing for over 7 years now, I often forget about articles I’ve previously written. Also the search function on this blog isn’t the best. So to help everyone out, I’ve create an index page to list and link all the articles in alphabetical order. Now we can all find them!
Happy reading.
Do you frantically try and lose weight every year just before Summer?
With a Ray Peat inspired diet, THIS year is the LAST time you’ll need to do this.
You’ll also have:-
Prepare to un-learn everything you thought you knew about health.
Others are charging hundreds, even thousands of dollars, for the same information.
You even get access to a Facebook support group to keep learning and asking questions!
For a tiny price of only US$7.70 the ZEN Beach Diet ebook includes:
Join hundreds of women who are already enjoying this unique eating style and feeling better than ever.
It’s the only book of its kind anywhere in the world, that gives you the precise information you need, for the tiny price.
Start your Ray Peat inspired journey the right way from the beginning.
Payment via Paypal.
PDF download for your laptop, computer, phone or ipad.
Note: if you’d like a little more information first, head to the Ray Peat Beginners Guide.
Hands up who’s eating has been a little all over the place lately and needs to lose weight and get back on track with a Summer Diet Restart that’s Dr Ray Peat Inspired?
The good news is that I’ve just created the new Zen Beach Diet 3 Day Summer RESTART book and double bonus – you can even get it for FREE! Read on to find out how.
You’d think that all the weight loss programs out there would actually be enhancing your health while you’re losing weight. Unfortunately the opposite is true in most cases.
Over the 7 days we cover:-
Enter your details to learn the truth in our FREE 7-day email course:
You can unsubscribe at any time.
Relax and enjoy.
Cheers
Kristy x
PS:
If you’re having trouble with this sign up form please let me know at slimbirdy (at) ymail.com
Food is so confusing these days mainly because you’ve got many competing interests trying to tell you what to buy. From an unbiased health perspective though, let me explain why I believe grains are unhealthy.
Grains are one of two food types not recommended in the Ray Peat style diet. The other is Polyunsaturated Fats, which you can learn more about here.
The issue is not so much a piece of bread or croissant you are having occasionally, balanced with a nutrient rich, varied protein and fruit based diet. The issue is when people eat MAINLY grains and green leafy vegetables, day in and day out.
Things like cereal and toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch then pasta for dinner. For twenty years! Then over time, you start to see a systemic breakdown in optimal body function. For some it arrives sooner with gluten and other anti nutrients blasting holes in the gut, making people intolerant to everything.
Briefly the problem with starch is that it all turns to glucose raising blood sugar sky high and requiring high levels of insulin. It also creates endotoxin in the gut and stress in the body.
(Sign up to our free 7 day email course on ‘How to eat for weight loss’ to learn more detail about the problems with starch.)
The well known protein in grain causing so many issues for an ever increasing number of people. While only about 1% of the population may have full blown Celiac’s Disease, another 4% have a diagnosed wheat allergy. With many more suffering symptoms such as these:
So it’s quite a line up of feeling poorly, which some may not even associate with their love of fresh crusty rolls!
Read more here: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/signs-you-are-gluten-intolerant#section12
It’s a head spin right? Our whole lives we’ve been told to eat more fibre for a healthy gut and general health. As it turns out not even true, and in fact and many of the damaging anti nutrients following, are found in the outer husk of the grain which we are encouraged to eat. The main issues with harsh fibre is that it damages the gut lining leading to Leaky Gut issues, but it also feeds the bad bacteria in the gut, creating endotoxin and more problems.
– insoluble fibre – excess of which may cause gut issues and bacterial overgrowth
– phytates – blocking mineral absorption like zinc, iron, calcium & magnesium
– lignans – cause gastrointestinal distress
– lectins – damage the gastro intestinal lining and cause inflammation
– oxalates – which cause kidney stones
– pufas – causing thyroid and carbohydrate digestion issues
– goitrogens – disrupting the production of the thyroid hormone eg: millet
– saponins – can disrupt epithelial function in a manner similar to lectins, and cause gastrointestinal issues, like leaky gut syndrome. Eg: oats
No wonder we don’t feel so well. As I said, it’s not about the occasional croissant you are having, but the inclusion of grains daily in most meals for many years.
Other issues
Cause tooth decay
Obesity
Blood sugar imbalances
Mood changes
Heart disease
Inflammation
For all these reasons grains are relegated to the sometimes pile and limited to the two options -white rice and real white sour dough bread, which are the only two least likely to cause issues.
Keep and open mind, be aware of how you feel after grains and make your own decisions.
To your health,
Kristy x
So here we are already, the last day of our mind shifting journey on How to Eat for Weight Loss.
Everyone has different issues that may need to be explored in more depth, but at least we’ve covered the basics. There is always more to learn to effectively shape your lifestyle into one that creates optimal health for you specifically, so here are some options:
Facebook Private Group
Join our Private Facebook group here – Slim Birdy – ZEN Beach Diet – Eating Peaty – to continue the conversation and join a crew who are on the same path learning how to increase their metabolism and feel great.
The Zen Beach Diet book
Also highly recommended – and not just because I wrote it, ha ha – is the Zen Beach Diet book which is based on all of these principles. It goes into more detail with a 7-day meal plan, shows a new, easy way to measure and plan your meals, and has much more information on the Ray Peat way of eating. There are loads of new recipes too incorporating fruit.
It also details exactly how to lose weight with this diet, while improving your health at the same time. (This is what most people struggle with when they first follow Ray Peat.) The beautiful images get you in the relaxed beachy vibe, where all your body and diet troubles melt away.
“Yep I have bought this recipe book and can safely say we are given fabulous recipes with lots to eat. I feel very well fed plus the gorgeous photography images are sunny and cheery!” – Lisa W.
“You are to be commended on putting the basics in one easy reference for sure! This isn’t easy to simplify at all! Very, very helpful” – Marcine P.
“I am really enjoying the Zen Beach Diet. Great info in it and easy to understand.“ J.V.
“I’ve been trying to follow a pro-metabolic diet for years but it didn’t click until I started working with Kristy and reading her books – the Zen Beach Diet is SO simple and easy to understand and makes me feel like I can do this. With Kristy’s help, I’ve been able to get my temperatures back to where they should be and feel more energized. Thank you, Kristy!” – Rachel B.
It’s available worldwide for immediate download, only AU$9.95, US$6.50 and GBP 5.15.
And I’ll leave you with one of the recipes from the book:-
Thanks for finding me. Let’s continue to explore our health in the most relaxed way possible and find our Zen lifestyle once and for all.
Bliss,
Kristy x
PS: New book Lemon Coffee plus Pro Metabolic Diet – Weight Loss Dynamite has just been released in March 2023 and is another piece of the weight loss and super health puzzle.
A Basic GuideI just wanted to empower you with a small guide of how to structure a meal so you have something practical to start today.
I base my diet on the following calories/macros because it works for my low activity lifestyle:
1,800 calories
100 g protein
40g fat
260g carbohydrates
The calorie level is the minimum for what an adult female should be eating. (For men it’s 2,400 cal)
The protein amount is what Ray Peat designates as the minimum for optimal functioning of the liver. (It’s between 80-100g depending on your size.)
The fat level is the amount I personally worked out for myself after trial and error. I tried super low fat of 20g which is 10% of calories but ended up with all kinds of health issues, which you read about on Day 1 of this series.
Then I moved to 40g fat and all those issues disappeared and also excess weight stayed off, so it was the right balance for me.
The rest then is carbohydrates to get to the 1,800 calories.
If you have weight issues and are eating way below this level, your move toward this number should be slow and steady like 100 calories extra per day and keep it at that for two weeks at least, before you add more. Your body needs time to get used to it and if you move too fast you will put on weight. If you eat way above this number currently and are not happy with your body, then again the reduction should be slow as well. Otherwise your body goes into hunger stress mode and the weight stays on anyway.
Breakfast
2 boiled eggs
80g (2.8oz) cottage cheese
380g (13.4oz) fruit
250ml (8.4oz) orange juice
Lunch
70g (2.5oz) white fish cooked in 1 tsp butter
340g (14oz) grapes
250ml (8.4oz) orange juice
Dinner
85g (3oz) beef strips cooked in 1 tsp butter
125g (4.4oz) cooked rice
200g (7oz) tomatoes & cucumber
200g (7 oz) grapes
250ml (8.4oz) orange juice
Other
2 x coffee with milk and 1 sugar—one after breakfast and one after lunch
1 x small grated carrot salad with 1 tsp coconut oil, 1 tsp vinegar, salt
(have the salad prior to lunch and wait 30 minutes)
Last day tomorrow with more help on what to do next.
Kristy x
Note: The image at the start is one of the meals in the Zen Beach Diet, all beautifully photographed by Brisbane based professional photographer Adrian Alford.
Also the mini meal plan above with all the measures is not the easiest to navigate. In the book, I introduce an alternative which has been described by a buyer as ‘brilliant in its simplicity.‘ Prepare to make your life a whole lot easier!
Fruit Glorious FruitFollowing on from yesterday, we identified that SUGAR carbohydrates are actually the preferred form for the body for optimal health. Weird isn’t it that we have been brainwashed to believe that the opposite is true. The reasons for their superiority are:-
– glucose is the fuel for all cells, so the closer the food substance is to the final form, the less processing the body has to do and the more energy is available for detox, for energy, for elimination, for fighting bugs etc
– so doesn’t feed bad bacteria, or stress the liver, or impair metabolic rate, or create inflammation, or create endotoxin
– because it provides instant energy and nutrients without the stress promoting factors
– this is because half the molecule of sugar is fructose; it’s processed by the liver and doesn’t impact blood sugar or raise insulin. This is the reason why sugar’s make up of glucose & fructose is superior than the all glucose composition of starch and is better for diabetics too
Now given that sugar has so many benefits, you may be wondering then why pure refined sugar isn’t recommended over fruit and the reason is – additional nutrients, water content, soluble fibre content and balance of nutrients.
Pure sugar is a powerful metabolic stimulator — a little goes a long way. At the same token it ramps up all processes of the body like cell renewal, energy production, hair growth, skin replacement etc, all which require a certain level of nutrients to happen effectively.
This is where fresh whole fruit comes in. It is the perfect little package of vitamins, minerals, water content, a little protein, a little fat, a little soluble fibre and a larger amount of totally supported sugar content, that nourishes your body completely without any negative effects.
So if you ate just refined sugar instead, you would soon develop nutritional deficiencies. Not because sugar ‘depletes’ them as I have seen written so many times, which is then given as a reason to avoid sugar. But it’s because the body is utilising them at a faster rate for high energy, cell creation and a fast metabolism. So the answer is to eat more nutrients along with the sugar.
We do this by giving whole fruit preference over refined sugar.
As we mentioned yesterday, there are too many negatives going on with starches – yes even potatoes – for it to make up a large portion of your diet. Personally I can’t just have the sweet taste all the time, so I still eat potatoes and white rice sometimes, but I limit my starch intake to 25% of my daily carbohydrates.
So now you know a large part of the answer. Fruit should be the focus of the diet for optimal health. Protein and fats are also necessary, but they play more of a supporting role to the fruit focus.
It certainly takes a bit of a mind shift to work fruit into every meal, as we are not used to doing it. So tomorrow I will share a basic meal plan, so you know where to go from here.
Kristy x
Carbohydrates are an important part of this diet and any diet, because of the role they play in the body.
It’s your primary energy source while active, and necessary for optimal thyroid function, which is what controls your body’s whole metabolism. Sure the body can convert fats and protein into carbohydrates if it has to for survival. Constantly putting pressure on the body though to do this conversion all day, every day for all your energy needs say in the Keto and Carnivore Diet, is what makes it all fall apart in the end.
It’s like trying to get your body to hold a plank indefinitely. At some point, it’s going to tire and fail.
Grains – starch
Vegetables like potatoes – starch
Fruit-like vegetables like pumpkin, squash, zucchini, peppers – combination of starch & sugar
Fruit – mostly sugar but some like bananas are also a combination of starch and sugar
Extracted sugar like honey, maple syrup, refined sugar – sugar
Now as I mentioned on Day 2, the top option – GRAINS – is one of the foods we keep away from. There are many reasons for this and this article explains why – click here.
The only two grain products we can have occasionally are white rice because this is the only grain that doesn’t cause gas, bloating or additional damage to the gut. The other is additive-free white sour dough bread. It should have only 3 ingredients – flour, salt, starter. This is ok because the fermenting process pre-digests the wheat, making it easier to digest and makes it easier on the gut. However they both should only be eaten occasionally, like twice a week because of the starch factor.
In the list of carbohydrates, you may have wondered why I bothered to separate the sources identifying STARCH and SUGAR. This is an important distinction by Dr Ray Peat pertaining to optimal health.
“Because of their glycemia, starches tend to cause blood sugar dysregulation compared to fructose and sugar (sucrose), promoting the effects of adrenaline, cortisol, stored PUFA, endotoxin, and estrogen.”
“Starches increase the stress hormones, interfering with progesterone and thyroid.”
“Rather than the sustained hyperglycemia which is measured for determining the glycemic index, I think the “diabetogenic” or “carcinogenic” action of starch has to do with the stress reaction that follows the intense stimulation of insulin release.”
“Starches can feed bacteria in the lower portion of the intestines if not digested quickly, increasing intestinal toxin burden and fermentation of carbohydrates which can stress the liver and produce changes in the metabolic rate, mood, and mediators of inflammation (like serotonin, estrogen, endotoxin). Excessive endotoxin exposure affects the liver’s production of cholesterol (not favorable).”
So because starch is all glucose, it’s impact on insulin is intense, plus it causes all kind of endotoxin issues in the gut. So fruit and sugar are the preferred carbohydrate source.
Tomorrow I will go into a little more detail about exactly why sugar is favoured.
Kristy x
Eating dietary fat is not actually a problem per se as fat is required in the body for various bodily functions like cell formation, optimal brain function, skin formation and even gut health. But as we saw yesterday, the type of fat you’re eating is a factor and more importantly, how much you’re eating is critical too.
Some say as long as your calories are set correctly then the type of food you eat doesn’t matter, but that’s not true, because different foods are processed in the body in different ways.
For example, did you know that fat competes with carbohydrates to get into the cells? And that if you eat too much fat, then it negatively impacts carbohydrate processing in the body?
Another factor with dietary fat is that if your calories are over your daily energy expenditure, fat is stored in your body DIRECTLY as the exact fat you ingest. So polyunsaturated fat is stored as polyunsaturated, saturated is stored as saturated – no conversion process of any kind is required, so it happens readily and easily.
Proteins or carbohydrates on the other hand, require a lengthy process to convert to body fat, which the body would rather not do if it can help it. It prefers to squander that extra energy and waste it if it can, rather than store it.
So this is why in a more balanced diet, like this Ray Peat style diet, nailing the correct amount of fat for your body is really important. Many like myself who were converting from a KETO diet, have all kinds of trouble trying to go lower fat. It’s just because it becomes part of your lifestyle to choose these foods and you cook that way too. It takes a really conscious effort to learn exactly how much fat you are having and relearn what you need to be doing instead.
At the same token I don’t advocate a continuous super low fat diet, which is described as 10% of calories as fat or 20g in an 1,800 calorie diet, as this actually leads to health issues. You can read more about what happened to me when I tried that here: http://slimbirdy.com/low-fat-diet-a-health-perspective/
The level of fat we are aiming for is 40g or 20% of calories. This seems to be the mark to maintain health while effectively losing weight. Once you get used to this, then assess how you feel and adjust from there. For some it may still be too low — you will know if you get some of the symptoms I outlined in my article. If it is still too high, your weight loss may be stalled.
While I know for a fact that a continuous low fat diet is not healthy, short periods of a super low fat diet are definitely beneficial in that they improve insulin sensitivity and your ability to process carbohydrates in the body. Even when you switch back to the slightly higher level of fat at say 40g afterwards, the benefits seem to continue on.
One important point though is if you are trying really low fat, make sure you are definitely eating enough calories at the same time. Be prepared and have enough low fat food on hand, so that you are not going hungry. Hunger as well would be a double stress on the body and not beneficial.
Here is one of my low fat recipes to get you started:
http://slimbirdy.com/cod-recipe/
Next up tomorrow – what type of carbohydrates are the best!
Kristy x