The Hormone Reset Diet (9 page)

M
y husband loves meat. He knows the ethical, environmental, and health arguments against it, but he adores red meat washed down with red wine. He’s not alone: according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, meat consumption is at an all-time high. In 2000, we ate 195 pounds per person, and that’s 57 pounds more than in the 1950s.
¹
Even though I think of meat eaters as being mainly men—I imagine cavemen circling a wild animal they just hunted and caught—it’s fascinating to me how modern meat is the food that disturbs estrogen balance the most. Since women have far more estrogen than men, that means we’re more vulnerable to the effects of meat (and alcohol), which raises estrogen. Even if you’re not a meat eater, start with this reset so you can get your estrogen back into balance.

Estrogen is the hormone primarily responsible for making us uniquely women, with breasts, hips, curves, and glossy locks; that is, we’re not simply small men. Yet there’s something freaky that happens when you’re female and you eat grain-fed, hormone-injected, superbug-infected meat: it slows down your digestion and may make you bloated or constipated (or both!); it raises your body’s estrogen levels; and it messes with your microbiome, the collective DNA of
the microbes that live in your gut and elsewhere in your body. Here is the biological principle: while it’s true that meat has a higher fat content than other sources of protein, the bigger problem is
what’s hidden in the fat of most meats
you find at your grocery store. You are anciently hardwired by your own DNA and microbiome to eat mostly vegetables, nuts, seeds, the occasional fruit, and clean proteins, regardless of your blood type and ethical views. In fact, such native and unprocessed foods keep you lean and your hormones in balance, particularly estrogen.

Unfortunately, rapid changes in industrial agriculture and cultural expectations over the past century have outpaced the ability of our genes to adapt. Consequently, obesity rates have nearly tripled in the United States since the 1960s.
²
Agricultural policies were changed in the 1970s, allowing our government to subsidize corn and soy—which is fed to cattle to accelerate the production of meat and dairy—to the tune today of $30 billion per year. Meat used to be a luxury to my great-grandmother, born in 1900. She would get it from the local butcher on Fridays, and it was fresh from a local ranch. Now we expect meat daily and consider it a sign of affluence. Today, 95 percent of food is grown and processed by industrial agriculture. Put simply, our DNA-driven biology hasn’t yet adjusted to modern meat, and women are particularly at risk from the effect of meat on their estrogen.

In this chapter, you will review the specific role of estrogen and how it behaves and feels in your body when it’s out of balance and accelerating the growth of your fat cells. You’ll learn how to activate estrogen with food in a positive manner so it stops making you fat.

Is your out-of-balance estrogen the reason for your inability to lose weight? Complete the following self-assessment to find out. Do you
have or have you experienced in the past six months …

Difficulty with weight loss? Rapid weight gain, particularly in the hips and butt?

Bloating or fluid retention?

Consumption of conventional meat? Do you eat at least one meal away from home per week?

Treatments with oral hormones (birth control pills or hormone replacement medication—even bioidentical hormones) or antibiotics?

Soreness when you (or a massage therapist or reflexologist) press in the hollow on top of your foot, between your big toe and second toe? (This is called the LV3 point, and in Chinese medicine, it becomes sensitive to pressure when you have liver stagnation, one of the symptoms of estrogen dominance.)

Autoimmune conditions, in which your immune system attacks your own tissues, such as Hashimoto’s disease (autoimmune thyroiditis)?

Large or increased bra-cup size or breast tenderness?

Abnormal Pap smears? Heavy bleeding or postmenopausal bleeding? Fibroids? Endometriosis or painful periods? (Endometriosis occurs when pieces of the uterine lining grow outside the uterine cavity, such as on the ovaries or bowel, and cause painful periods.)

Mood swings, PMS, depression, or just irritability? Weepiness, sometimes over the most ridiculous things? Mini breakdowns? Anxiety?

Frequent migraines or other headaches?