What causes weight gain series: Your inflammatory foods

I often hear this from customers before they go through the Cura Romana program. They have disconnected from the relationship to their body because they feel like something is broken, that they have no idea how to fix. They feel angry, they feel frustrated and they tend to blame their own body for doing something wrong. They often eat very carefully, they avoid foods that they believe will cause issues, they exercise often (and sometimes too aggressively) which somtimes leads to a stressed way of thinking and behaving. All of this occurs while believing that everything that they're doing is the right thing to do for health and more specifically to be able to lose weight. 

What they often find is just one frustration after another while continuing to reinforce that their is something broken within their body, and they often tell the story that others around them are eating the same things they are and exercising in the same way they are and it all seems to be working for them.

Does this sound like you? What could possibly be causing this issue? Well there are many reasons, that I will cover in this series but I am going to cover the most important one today which is foods. Foods that are specific to you that are causing an inflammatory response.

Now obviously in an ideal world any healthy food that you digest will be absorbed and broken down into its micronutrients and macronutrients, to then be utilized in the body in whatever way the body requires. But as we have often found, the world that we live in is not ideal.

Many have already experienced this when following a standard calorie in, calorie out diet. You eat what you are told to eat and restrict your calorie intake to less than you have expended during exercise only to discover that you wake up one morning and you've gained a pound or two. Now from the standard thinking of calories in calories out, this should not happen. If you expend more energy than you take in you should always lose weight. So when this happens you blame yourself, “I must have done something wrong”, “ I did not exercise enough” or what's worse is when someone else accuses you of cheating or lying. 

But as you are probably aware this sort of thing happens often, so there is something significantly wrong in this way of thinking. 

So what’s actually happening when we gain two pounds overnight seemingly for no reason? Well the body is having an inflammatory reaction. This is the body's ability to protect itself by retaining water to dilute whatever is messing with its biochemistry. 

In a similar way to when we exercise, we will tear the muscle fibres which then will create an inflammatory response which will then allow for the healing and strengthening of the muscle fibers as they grow back. This is a good thing but it is not good when it becomes chronic. For instance if we continued to do heavy lifting on a broken or sprained ankle we would not be allowing the body to have temporary inflammation to gain stronger muscle, we would be inducing a chronic inflamed state where the body may never heal. This is what is happening to our bodies when we continually eat food that is causing a bio chemical reaction that is inducing an immune response which then causes inflammation and if we repeat this over and over, it become chronic inflammation.

So what are these inflammatory foods that cause this biochemical disturbance within the body? Well, if you look online, there are examples of many different diets that are restrictive in one form or another, based upon certain aspects of foods that have been identified as causing difficulties. For example, dairy-free, gluten-free, low FODMAP, low lectin, low anti-nutrient. Paleo, pescatarian, vegan, vegetarian. All of these different ways of eating are an attempt to create a generalized support for removing certain inflammatory foods from the average person's diet. Some of these diets have been helpful for many. They feel a little better, they may have lost some weight, They no longer have the same sinus issue that they had while drinking milk etc. Some of them may have worked in small way or big way but they are often still struggling with being overweight. Why is this? Well these diets are a generalisation of a human being. But we are not a generalisation, we are not an average person. We are totally unique, and our biochemistry is totally unique. And one of the biggest mistakes that so many of us have made is to follow blindly somebody's recommendations, as opposed to following our own bodies needs. As I have said so often before: 

So how can you determine which foods are causing this reaction? This is where Cura Romana really starts to shine. Because of the way that the plan is set up, we have the rapid weight loss part of the program which helps to detoxify the body quickly and easily. Because of this detox, clearing out fat soluble toxicity, simplifying digestion with basic proteins and simple vegetables as well as utilising time restrictive eating we allow for the body to be very responsive to any foods that mess with its biochemistry.

This then allows for the second part of the program which is Consolidation to really shine. This is where we test different foods and because the body is so balanced and clean after the food plan it allows our body to speak very clearly to us whether or not it is a food that our body loves or that our body is struggling with. 

One of the reasons why these two parts of the program work so well together is that it prevents the body from being able to mask symptoms. So what is masking symptoms? In a similar way to if we are thirsty our body will tell us we are thirsty. If we stop listening to those first signals the body will stop telling us that we are thirsty. It will make the assumption that we are in a place where water is not available and as a consequence it will do everything in its power to use the water that it has already and will stop telling us that we are thirsty. 

This is similar to if we are eating a food that is messing with our biochemistry. If we do not listen to it, it will no longer speak to us in the same way. It will simply try to deal with it as best it possibly can. What this often results in is chronic inflammation, water retention and then putting away the inessential fat stores and storing the toxicity away from the vital organs (often in the feet, ankles, legs or inside the inessential fat stores).This is an absolutely phenomenal mechanism that the body has to always do its absolute best to support us so that we can continue to survive even if it is struggling with the food resources that we are giving it. But when we allow the body to clear out some of the toxicity that it has been holding on to, to reduce the water retention and inflammation which occurs through Cura Romana’s food plan, then when we slowly start to introduce new foods through consolidation our body can really speak to us. It can be very clear about what foods are allowing us to thrive and what foods are putting the body back into a survival state. 

Now some people when they hear this they say “oh my god my body's going to tell me I can't eat chocolate cake”, “I can't have bread”, “I can't have chickpeas”. And sometimes that is true and sometimes it’s not. Having worked with so many people for 15 years I can tell you I am constantly surprised at each individual in terms of what foods their body does well with and what foods it does not. And this is totally unique to each individual.

Some people do extraordinarily well on certain kinds of breads. Some people struggle with things that are perhaps surprising. They may struggle with salmon. They struggle with... this is the beautiful thing in that this is entirely about a deeper connection, a deeper understanding of what works for you individually and only you can discover that. 

Cura Romana can be a wonderful tool in your tool belt to make this process as simple and as easy as possible. I can tell you from experience that there are tremendous gifts that simply come from a deeper honoring of what your body needs so that in turn your body can honor you by giving you what you need with additional energy, additional clarity, additional focus, additional resources and a deeper intelligence. It's one of the things that is so rewarding about working with people through this simple process.

Now another thing that people often hear when I say this is that “oh my God I'm just only going to be able to eat five or ten different foods and it’s going to be even more restrictive”. That it's just going to be a continual restriction of what I can eat and what I can't and there are too many restrictions already in my life. The answer is NO. This is not the case.  

This I very much understand but the important thing is not to establish only a few things that your body does well with. We want to give you the resources to discover all kinds of real foods that your body does well with. Discover new recipes, new ways of cooking that honour your body so your body can honour you in return. So you can continue to lose weight and then stabilise your weight long term. So instead of reaching for the peanut butter on toast or 3 minute noodles you can have a treasure trove of foods to choose from to make delicious simple recipes that support your body to support you.