|
|
|
|
April 28, 2014 Hi {!firstname_fix} It has been an interesting weekend for me. A rescue in Virginia sent me a dog they felt they could not handle. He sure loves it here, LOL. He has been out in the back with 3 other boys romping around having a blast. Makes it fun for me. This is the start of Ranch week. People will begin arriving on Tuesday so there will lots of fun times. I feel ready and settled. Looking forward to having a wonderful time. There will be no classes beginning the week of Wednesday, April 30, 2014. These classes will begin Wednesday, May 7, 2014. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:
This class will begin Wednesday, May 14, 2014. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:
The class schedule is online. Click here to see what is planned. A number of you have asked me how the classes work. Check the class list page for more information on this. And please go read the questions and answers before you write to me. If you have trouble getting through the process, write the tech forum. Be sure to visit our Radiant Recovery website and Community Forum regularly. Warmly, Kathleen **********************************************************************
**Quote From Kathleen ** All this work will create enormous gains for you. As you 'do the food," you are going to reconnect with your birthright. **********************************************************************
**Testimonial of the Week ** The boys (11 and 15) were at their dad's for a couple days after being with me for over a month (and being in very good shape. I picked them up from their dad's to take them to my sister's for the weekend for a get-together. On Monday night they ate dessert. Then on Tuesday the three of us were at my sister's alone for a couple hours and when I came out of the shower WWIII was happening between the boys. We spent some time reflecting on the difference that just a couple days of not doing the food can make. I have been stressing over how they are going to stay on program at their dad's since they both came home wanting to amp up their programs after Ranch. I started making suggestions: Sit your dad down and maybe together you can ask for his support; take him the tapes; take him the book; leave my name out of it; suggest a call with Kathleen. Finally my older son held up his hand for me to stop and basically said, "Mom - you don't understand Dad. I do, because I am just like him. The things you are suggesting won't work. When the time is right I am going to say 'Dad - get over it. My brother needs your support and you are being selfish.' That will start a conversation and....just don't worry, Mom - I'm on it and it will be ok." LOL - it just cracked me up. He is so grown up all of the sudden. When did that happen? His brother was almost applauding. I love it when they do team. LOL Well - I have no doubt - it will work out now. He's on it. VL **********************************************************************
**Notes from the Forum ** Mosaic on Can It Work that Fast? So glad you are feeling better! I can believe it does work that fast! Because if you have a read in PnP you can see all the good things that breakfast does. Starts to settle blood sugar (and it calmed my potential beta-endorphin spikiness), nourishment to function, self care, focus, etc. etc. I felt the benefit in step three, and I guess it's going to be individual for all. I did have a fair few ups and downs throughout, but can not regret those as that's how I learnt the most about what suits me  As for journaling - the thing to do is not distract oneself from step one.  Having said that, I did write down the 4 parts a la journal, and what I was eating for breakfast as it was the only way I could personally get my focus there and remember what the 4 parts were. Have you been having the same breakfast or a variety? Something nice? **********************************************************************
**Radiant Ambassadors **  Do we have any budding orators in our midst? Are any of you interested in talking about Radiant Recovery but aren’t quite sure how to tackle it? Well, Kathleen’s produced a PowerPoint all about sugar sensitivity. It’s sitting in the files section of the ambassadors list just waiting to be used. We can use it to illustrate talks about Radiant Recovery and ‘doing the food’. If you want to come on over to the ambassadors list and see what other delights we have in the files section you will be more than welcome! Selena selenas@blueyonder.co.uk Come join us if you are excited about spreading the news. **********************************************************************
**How I Found Radiant Recovery ** Hi Every One My name is Pamela and I have been eating breakfast with protein since January 2013. Have managed to get to step 3 but go right back on the sugar. Also I have a real problem with step 2 and find it a real burden do this step and am open to receiving help around it. I was given a copy of Potatoes Not Prozac over ten years ago and it collected a lot of dust. I ordered the new copy in January this year and picked it up and put it down. I also have nineteen and a half years in AA and feel that the Radiant Recovery program would enhance my recovery. It especially explains about the physical part of the disease as most people talk about the mental and spiritual. So looking forward to the next week and sharing with you guys. **********************************************************************
** Radiant Recovery® Store ** David manages the Radiant Recovery® Store. He is also Kathleen's oldest son. When any of us in the Radiant Recovery community make travel plans, these are two great products we are sure to carry with us:
Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. **********************************************************************
**Radiant Kitchen ** Strawberry Soup
Notes: If you use frozen strawberries, be sure to purchase unsweetened brands. You may wish to slightly thaw berries to make processing easier. This soup can be served as a refreshing appetizer or as a light dessert. The addition of black pepper may seem odd to you, but it is an old culinary trick which greatly enhances the fruitiness of the strawberries. Do give it a try! For more great program-friendly recipes, check out our cookbook in the store and visit our online Radiant Recipes site. **********************************************************************
**Radiant YLD ** 
Your Last Diet is the place we talk about weight loss. It is the *safe zone* for people who come in distraught and think that losing weight will solve all things. Ironically, it has turned into a place of creative conversation. The healing level is very high.If you think you have to have mastered the 7 steps to join YLD, you don't. You can be on step 0 and enjoy what we are doing. We love having new people. And for those of you who were at chat last week, you know that Kathleen shared a wonderful story about the ashtray her Dad had and how it shaped her life. It said, *people are no damn good* and she told Daddy that it was wrong. Through the wonders of ebay, she now has this very same icon on her desk. If you would like to join, come find us here **********************************************************************
**Radiant Conversations ** We have a new portal for the Conversations program. Come check it out here. Thank you for the wonderful discussions about our plan for discussions. I have been putting it all together and feel confident about bringing back to you a whole revitalizing curriculum! If you would like to join us, you can do that below. Join YLD Weight Loss Now: click here - $99 Join Conversations 2011 Now: click here - $99 Join Both YLD and Conversations Now: click here - $149 Current YLD members wish to Upgrade to Both, click here - $49 If you are not a member, come and join us if you want to be a part of the latest and greatest or just have some plain ol' fun! **********************************************************************
**Our Online Groups ** The Radiant Step One list is a great place to learn the nuances of breakfast, build a strong foundation for the rest of the steps, and find how helpful it is to share our journey with others. It is great for new people and those who have been on the program a long time. Sharing helps everyone. The awesome thing is we all, Step 1 or Step 7, eat breakfast every single day. How cool is that? **********************************************************************
**Finding The Program ** Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.
When I was looking for answers to why my food program worked so well, I started asking questions. Lots and lots of questions. Yes, there were striking patterns in the stories. And then I went to the scientific literature. I looked in many different places: alcoholism, nutrition, pharmacology, psychology, endocrinology and psychiatry. I didn't have a “field” to describe what I was thinking, so I poked around in everyone else's. I turned up some intriguing findings. There seemed to be three core issues which fit what I was seeing in the clients: volatile blood sugar reactions (known as carbohydrate sensitivity), low levels of the brain chemical serotonin, and low levels of the brain chemical beta-endorphin. When I laid out the symptoms and behaviors associated with these, I was floored at how closely they matched the patterns I saw in my clients and myself. I imagine a three-legged stool with blood sugar (BS), serotonin (5HT) and beta-endorphin (BE) acting as each leg. If there were a deficit in any or all of the legs, the stool would be off balance and wouldn't work well. Sugar sensitivity is the name I picked for the top of the stool. Each person seemed to have different deficits in each leg of the stool. Sugar-sensitive people with low levels of serotonin would be depressed and impulsive, those with deficits in blood sugar would be volatile and moody, and people with low beta endorphin would have low self esteem, feel socially isolated and have a very low tolerance for painful situations. People with deficits in more than one area would take on those expanded symptoms. There were powerful correlates with dietary habits as well. The BS's would tend to skip meals, forget breakfast and eat erratically. They would fall off the cliff and grab anything in desperation. The 5HT's would be drawn to bread and pasta, comfort foods. They tended to be binge eaters or compulsive eaters and often struggled with their weight. The BE's were hard-line sugar and alcohol lovers. These were the ones who played with the edge, flirting with danger and squeaking by. They were the miracle workers who pushed deadlines and squeaked by. And there were thousands and thousands who were all three. My own clients were an incredible mix of all three. Highly complex, dramatic, creative, smart, intuitive, sensitive, warm and caring. And underneath, always in huge pain because they felt powerless to “just say no.” I created a nutritional intervention to treat sugar sensitivity. We called it a food plan. It was simple, very straightforward and easy to understand. Eat regularly, have protein with every meal. Eat brown things instead of white things, go off of sugar and have a potato before bed. Very simple, yet profoundly elegant and scientifically intentional. The food plan could smooth out the volatility of the blood sugar response, raise the serotonin levels, and stop the beta-endorphin priming and enhance beta-endorphin functioning. The same simple program covered all the sugar-sensitive bases. And because the program was individually tailored, it reinforced positive behavioral changes. As people started to talk with one another, we discovered that the very same themes were indeed constant for almost everyone. While sugar sensitivity seems to be a reasonable explanation for why we behave the way we do, we can't just go to PubMed, put in “sugar sensitivity” and find hundreds or thousands of citations telling us all about our unique bodies and behaviors. But the story is there, encoded in unexpected places and in unexpected ways. If we listen and watch our own stories, we can go back to the literature and better understand the why of what we are living. The beta-endorphin story first came from the work of Dr. Christine Gianoulakis at McGill University. She noticed that two different strains of mice responded to the effects of alcohol in very different ways. The C57GL/6 strain of mice had a far more potent reaction to drinking than their “dry” brothers and sisters, the DBA/2 mice. Dr. Gianoulakis and her colleagues had worked with these mice for a long time in many studies. They discovered that the C57's and the DBA's have very different levels of beta endorphin. The C57's are born with much lower levels of BE. To compensate for this, their brains increase the number of BE receptor sites, called upregulation, which caused a bigger response to things which evoke beta endorphin. Alcohol and sugar both evoke a beta-endorphin response. The C57s can be thought of as mice waiting to be alcoholic. I would call them sugar-sensitive mice. Dr. Gianoulakis extended her study to people and discovered a whole group of people who were genetically predisposed to alcohol addiction. The children and grandchildren of alcoholics seem to be the human equivalent of the C57 mice. They were predisposed to abusing alcohol and becoming addicted to it. I have found that this same group tends to be very drawn to the addictive use of sugars and white flour products. As Dr. Gianoulakis was publishing her work, a number of other scientists were noticing that the C57s also preferred the taste of sweet things far more than their buds, the DBAs. Some of them found that sucrose quieted pain. Others discovered that not only does sucrose quiet physical pain, but also it quiets the pain of loss or social isolation. The C57s (the sugar-sensitive mice) and the DBA (the normal mice) had very different responses to sugars and alcohol. Dr. Elliott Blass, then at Cornell, wanted to understand how this happened. How could sugar act like a drug. He did some experiments and showed that sucrose cut physical and emotional pain by evoking the brain's own beta endorphin. Beta endorphin is the body's natural painkiller. Sucrose acts like an opioid drug such as morphine or heroin. Not as intensely, but on the same beta-endorphin system. The C57s have a 35 times more powerful reaction to morphine than do the DBAs. Think of that. Insert sugar in the place of morphine, and you will begin to see why some body and brain types seek it, love it and get addicted to it. The little C57 mice give us a lot of ideas about why we behave the way we do. The scientists have not started thinking of the C57s as sugar sensitive, but those of us who are doing this program can suggest this leap from the C57 profile to the people profile. The “match” is extraordinary. If we start thinking of ourselves as little C57 mice, we can have LOTS of clues about why we act the way we do. And we can start understanding why our DBA friends cannot in any way understand why we keep going back when they are able to just say no. As we continue this discussion, let's stop for a moment and take one cautionary note. Scientists do not trash the little C57s. Nor do they laud the DBA's. They simply know that they are two very distinct strains with different body chemistries. If they wish to look at the effect of a given intervention and want to see the differences in different body types, they order both kinds of mice. Their “dispassion” about types of mice can comfort us in our journey to healing. So, we can work on taking the negative judgment and shame off of the C57 way of life. Our first step is understanding. As we get how this works, we can start making choices for healing. Thanks for reading! If you know someone who could benefit from this, feel free to forward it to them. Not a subscriber yet? Like what you have read? Sign up to get future issues delivered straight to you: http://www.radiantrecovery.com Until next time!
Here are the folks who are helping put the newsletter together:
Gretel, our webmaster, puts it all together. David runs the Radiant Recovery® Store. Selena provides the weekly Ambassadors column. Steph provides the Your Last Diet column. mosaic contributes to the Notes from the Forum column. ©2014 Kathleen DesMaisons. All rights reserved. You are free to use or transmit this article to your ezine or website as long as you leave the content unaltered, use this attribution: "By Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. of Radiant Recovery®", and notify kathleen@radiantrecovery.com of the location. Please visit the Radiant Recovery® website at http://www.radiantrecovery.com for additional resources on sugar sensitivity and healing addiction. You are getting the weekly newsletter from Radiant Recovery® in response to your signup. A copy of this newsletter may also be found posted on the web at http://www. radiantrecovery.com/weeklynewsletter |
