by James B. LaValle
Woman on scale
Did it ever occur to you that the reason you can’t lose weight may be due to the fact that you are eating foods that you’re allergic to? This is a revelation to many people who have struggled unsuccessfully for years to get rid of unwanted pounds.
The prevalence of food allergies is on the rise in both children and adults.1-2 Allergies can be responsible for a number of health issues including irritable bowel type symptoms3 and migraines.4 Very few people are aware however, that immune responses to foods can go on to create a number of metabolic disruptions that can contribute to weight gain.
At LMI where we counsel people to lose weight using our Metabolic Code Diet (MCD) eating program, we see this all the time. We had one patient in our diet group who had tried a very low carb diet in the past, and lost no weight. The reason? She was sensitive to dairy and didn’t know it. On her previous diet, she was eating a lot of cheese. On the MCD, which is a lower carb, low allergen eating plan, she cut out the cow’s milk cheeses and dairy products, ate according to our meal recommendations, and the weight started coming off.
There are several ways common dietary allergens can keep weight on you. When the body is having an immune reactivity to food, it can cause increased stress hormone production. Increased cortisol in particular can contribute to insulin resistance — and that reduces your body’s ability to process the glucose from foods high in carbs. And the increased insulin keeps you from being able to burn fat.
Increased cortisol can also go on to inhibit the body’s ability to convert your primary thyroid hormone, T4, to the active form, T3. Without enough active T3, it is very difficult to lose weight. If you have developed an immune response (an allergy) to certain foods, it can also go on to cause autoimmune antibodies which can attack any tissue in the body, including thyroid tissue. Autoimmune attacks on the thyroid cause one of the most common forms of low thyroid, called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
So, in a roundabout way, food sensitivities can slow metabolism and cause weight gain. By decreasing your consumption of any foods to which you might be sensitive, you may potentially improve insulin sensitivity, lower glucose, and promote better thyroid hormone production.
There are seven foods responsible for almost all food allergies — peanuts, other tree nuts like walnuts, fish/shellfish, soybeans, eggs, wheat and cow’s milk. The only two foods we limit initially on the MCD eating program are wheat and cow’s milk dairy. Why? Through years of clinical practice, we have found that wheat and dairy are usually the most problematic. So, we eliminate cow’s milk products and wheat, and anything made from them.
This part of the MCD eating plan can be a challenge at first for many people. Western diets are so centered around wheat and dairy there is almost no red-blooded American who doesn’t eat at least some wheat and dairy every day. But you would be surprised at the variety of breads, crackers, and chips that are available wheat-free. (You just need to be careful to eat them within your limited carbohydrate portions.) You can even find a wide array of goat and sheep’s milk dairy products in most supermarkets and health food stores. What most people find is that they may miss a few of the eliminated foods at first, but their quality of life improves so much, that eventually they don’t miss them at all.
We estimate that food allergies contribute to weight gain in at least 30% of our patients who come to us for weight loss. Of those, the vast majority doesn’t have to go any further than eliminating wheat and dairy to jump start their weight loss.
The Metabolic Code Diet is a sensible eating plan that you can follow for the rest of your life and never feel deprived or hungry. But most importantly, since it addresses all the potential causes of metabolic disruption, it’s an eating plan you can count on to get at the root causes of your weight gain, making it a better long-term solution for healthy weight loss and management.
References
1. http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/545808/
2. Kagan RS (February 2003). Environ. Health Perspect. 111; (2): 223–5.
3. Zar S, et al. (July 2005). Scand. J. Gastroenterol. 40 (7): 800–7.
4. Arroyave-Hernandez CM, et al. Rev Alerg Mex. 2007 Sept-Oct; 54(4):162-8.
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