The Virgin Diet (9 page)

Puffiness

Rough, itchy, thinning or dry skin

Slowed thinking

Sluggishness

Thinning outer third of the eyebrows

Weight gain

Yellowish tinge on skin

If you show any of these signs, consult an integrative physician. See the Resources section on my website for some suggestions on how to find one.

Now, for another clue as to why soy isn’t ideal food for us, let’s look at what humans have been eating since we showed up on the planet. For hundreds of thousands of years, we were hunters and gatherers. We ate raw nuts and seeds, wild animals that were not domesticated or fed grain, wild fish and insects. (Don’t worry, there are no insects on the Virgin Diet!) We also ate fruits and vegetables, depending on the season. If we could find an egg, we ate it, too—but that didn’t happen on a consistent basis.

Then, 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, we introduced grains into our diet. We also started keeping domesticated animals, which meant that some cultures were eating dairy and eggs on a regular basis. A lot of nutritional experts argue that this is why many of us have trouble digesting grains, dairy and eggs—we just haven’t had time for our bodies to adapt to that way of eating.

In any case, soy came into our food supply only 2,000–3,000 years ago. Although this might seem like a long time, when you’re looking at how long we’ve been on the planet, it’s really just a moment. And even that figure is deceptive because we’ve only been consuming soy as part of our typical diet for the past 20 to 30 years, when we started to go low-carb and subbed in soy for grains.

Frankly, I think the main reason that soy has become a super health food is because it is so cheap to produce. Why? It’s cheap partly because of the way it’s been genetically modified.

Basically, soy is cheap because the big companies have figured out how to genetically modify it so it can be sprayed with a potent herbicide that kills everything around it without destroying the soy crop.

Farmers can now plant a ton of soy and spray the heck out of it. So, where is that poison going? Into the soybeans—and then into the person who consumes the soy. Or, if the soy is fed to cattle or farm-raised fish, which is becoming more and more common, then the poison goes into those animals and
then
into you. Remember, you are what you eat, ate.

GMOs are also seriously damaging our gut health because when we eat these genetically modified crops, the altered genes are absorbed by the bacteria in our guts, which changes our gut flora. As a result, we are setting up our intestinal flora to be resistant to antibiotics.

Furthermore, because GMO crops are built to withstand pesticides, they are more heavily sprayed than non-GMO crops. So, GMO crops are responsible for putting more poison into our air, earth and water—and our bodies.

I don’t think it’s an accident that just when genetically modified foods flooded the market—between 1994 and 2001—food-related illnesses doubled. Genetically modified foods tend to be more allergenic, antinutritional, carcinogenic and toxic, with special dangers for your gastrointestinal tract, your endocrine system and your immune system. So we’re going to see more infertility, immune issues and gastrointestinal changes.

Animals that have been fed genetically modified foods have been known to have bleeding stomachs, damaged organs and immune system problems. The animals themselves often have infertility problems, miscarriages and premature births. Their young suffer from lower birth weights, inability to reproduce and altered DNA functioning. If that’s what’s happening to them, what’s happening to us?

In my view, genetically altered foods are anything but innocuous. When you start to create new genes, you have no idea what the result will be.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine recommends that we avoid genetically modified food. They think it’s very dangerous, and so do I. And so do many parts of Western Europe, where genetically modified foods have been outlawed. In the Resources section on my website, I’ve included leading GMO expert Jeffrey Smith’s website, and you can also go to www.thevirgindiet.com/GMO to listen to an interview I did with him. For the sake of your weight, your health and your children’s health, stay away from GMOs.

GMOs AND
SEEDS OF DECEPTION

I first realized how dangerous and unhealthy GMOs are when I listened to a lecture given at the American College of Alternative Medicine by Jeffrey Smith. He is the author of
Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating,
a pioneering book that was one of the first to document the problems with genetically modified foods. He has been researching GMOs for years, and so far he has documented 65 serious health risks from them. For example, he has found that offspring of rats that were fed genetically modified soy suffered a fivefold increase in mortality along with lower birth weights and the inability to reproduce. Male mice fed genetically modified soy had abnormal sperm counts. Smith also found that many farmers have seen sterility or infertility problems in animals fed genetically modified corn or soy.

Refined soy—soy hot dogs, soy ice cream, soy yogurt, soy milk—is even more problematic. Most of these soy “foods” are incredibly refined products with sugar added. So the first thing you have to ask yourself is,
Does eating refined foods versus whole foods make sense?

Now let’s look at
how
soy is processed: it’s spun in aluminum casks. That means refined soy can also contain aluminum, which is bad for your health in countless ways, plus MSG is added to improve the taste, which increases soy’s reactivity for a lot of people. You should also know that if an item is put in during processing, it might not necessarily be listed in the finished product’s ingredients. That means you don’t really know
what
you’re getting.

Soy is not the health food it is touted to b.

So, you get it, right? Soy is not the health food it is touted to be—not when you consume it as edamame, and much less so when you eat it as ice cream. During Cycle 1, let’s take it out 100 percent. We’ll see about putting it back—in small quantities—during Cycle 2.

WHERE SOY HIDES

Asian foods

Energy bars and shakes

Miso

Prepared foods

Soy protein powders

Soy sauce

Tempeh

Teriyaki sauce

Textured vegetable protein

Tofu

Veggie burgers

LOVE THE LECITHIN

The one form of soy that is just fine to eat is soy lecithin, a common ingredient in many gluten-free and vegan breakfast shakes, protein bars and other such foods. This ingredient is all right because it is protein-free—and it is the protein that sparks the allergies.

The Virgin Diet works! The last time I was below 200 was 4 years ago. I think of losing weight like holding one’s breath: you can only do it for so long. I could only starve myself for so long, and then bam! I’d gain it all back. Well, not this time. I was so excited when I saw the 199 on my scale that I couldn’t believe it!

You don’t need to spend a lot of money to go on the Virgin Diet or deprive yourself. I can stay on it indefinitely—and not eat plastic food from cardboard boxes either.

I was so lucky to find JJ Virgin! I now know how to eat in restaurants. I now cook great meals for my family. My wife lost 4 pounds in 1 week, just eating the healthy meals I made for her. I save a ton of money by not buying dinners out, and I’m not tempted to overeat. The recipes are simple and quick to make.

If you want to get in shape, eat right and feel great, this is the program for you.

“JJ, it’s just not fair!” my client Michele exclaimed. “No one should have to tolerate both wrinkles and acne!”

Michele and I shared a laugh over her mock-desperate tone, but I knew that for Michele, the problem of acne was not only real but also serious. A professional speaker and author who was a frequent guest on talk shows, Michele was always in the public eye, and her appearance was obviously a significant part of her professional life. As a result, her frequent skin breakouts were driving her to distraction. She had tried covering them up with makeup, but of course, that didn’t really hide anything and only made the problem worse.

“There is a solution, Michele,” I assured her. “I can give it to you in three words: dump the dairy.”

If you love Greek-style yogurt, foamy milk on your cappuccino or goat cheese on your salad, you won’t be happy to hear those words. However, if you want healthy, glowing skin, you will be delighted with the results you get with the Virgin Diet. Many of the 7 high-FI foods are bad for your skin, but dairy in particular causes problem after problem. Dairy contains hormones that turn on oil glands, and it’s a big reason for our current upswing in adult acne.

We’ve all heard the propaganda pushing dairy as a super health food, but in fact, cow’s milk can be so bad for skin that when I’m working
with a client battling acne, rosacea or any other skin condition, the first thing I do is tell them to dump the dairy.

Many people are also lactose-intolerant—lacking the enzymes needed to digest dairy—but even people who can tolerate dairy might still be having problems with it. Dairy is one of the most common sources of both food sensitivity and food allergy, sending our immune systems into an uproar with each spoonful of yogurt or sip of milk. If you are sensitive to dairy, you’ll likely have acne, rosacea, mucus problems, gas and bloating or sinusitis.

Even people who can tolerate dairy might still be having problems with it.

To be sure, these problems might diminish or even disappear after you’ve had 21 days of freedom from the top 7 high-FI foods. So when we get to Cycle 2, we’ll challenge dairy back in and find out whether you can have some occasionally or perhaps even on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, even if you can tolerate dairy, there are several significant problems that it can create for you. Here are some of my biggest concerns:

• It can make you fat.
  
• It can promote insulin resistance (which contributes to weight gain).
  
• It can cause or exacerbate acne and other skin problems.
  
• It can be bad for your bones. (Yes, you heard me. Because of its acidity, dairy might actually
  contribute
  to osteoporosis.)
  

Ready to learn more? I know dairy products can be tempting, but once you know the effects they have on your body, you may find them just a little easier to resist.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You are remembering that study that was blasted all over the media saying that eating dairy could help you lose weight. Although studies have shown this, it’s noteworthy that they were all led by the same researcher. However, several studies have tried to replicate those findings, and none of them have succeeded. So, despite all the hype, that study does not look very promising at this point, especially since there is more research out there showing just the opposite: if you drink more milk, you
gain
weight.
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If you drink more milk, you
gain
weight.

Remember when you were growing up and your teacher showed you the food pyramid, the one that told you to drink a lot of milk? Well, a recent study led by Dr. Walter Willet at Harvard’s School of Public Health found that children who drink 3 servings of skim or 1 percent milk each day—as opposed to higher fat dairy products—were more prone to becoming overweight than the children who drank fewer such servings each day. The study, conducted by mail-in questionnaires, included 12,829 children ages 9 to 14—a huge and therefore highly significant study.

Although the children’s weight gain may have been due to the increase in calories, the weight gain was only associated with skim and 1 percent milk rather than with full-fat dairy products. Possibly this was due to the higher relative lactose content of lower fat milk—remember, lactose is a type of sugar—or perhaps it was due to the hormones and other growth factors in milk, which are higher in concentration when fat content is lower.
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So let’s look more closely at those growth factors, which I bet is something you never even consider when you think about milk, let alone yogurt, cheese or whey. But now I want you to think about it: what is dairy for? Basically, it exists to help baby animals grow bigger, right? As a result, every mother’s milk is full of natural anabolic hormones, or growth hormones, such as IGF-1, an insulin-like growth factor.

Hormone-free milk does not exist. Even the most organic, pure and natural milk is basically a delivery vehicle for hormones—vital chemicals intended to spur growth. When we’re grown-up, however, that same mother’s milk can help us get fat and develop acne.

Here’s another one of dairy’s weight-related problems: insulin resistance. As we saw in
Chapter 1
, this is what occurs when your body is given too much sugar to break down at once.

Now here’s where it gets complicated: even though it’s low on the glycemic index, dairy affects insulin secretion. (The glycemic index measures how quickly a food converts into blood sugar and how intense the insulin response needs to be as a result. See pages 128–129 for more information on this.) So when people consume dairy products, they can suffer from elevated insulin and insulin resistance.

When you raise insulin and throw in a few growth factors, what do you get? You guessed it: you get acne. I take this one very personally because I struggled a lot with acne when I was growing up. My doctors always told me it was fine to eat dairy products, but now I know that all dairy products, including yogurt, cheese and ice cream, contain hormones that turn on the oil glands, and it could be contributing to our current upswing in adult acne.

One of the largest and longest studies of women’s health is the Nurses’ Health Study, which looked at some 77,761 nurses over 12 years. Guess what they found? Those who drank more milk as teenagers had higher rates of severe teenage acne than those who drank less. Here’s the shocker: skim milk was worse than the full-fat milk. It turns out that when you take the fat out of the milk, you’re left with more lactose, which is another word for milk sugar. Any type of sugar is bad for acne, so that may be one of the reasons. The researchers also hypothesized that the presence of hormones and bioactive molecules in the milk might have been the cause.
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Now, I want you to take care of your bone health, but I don’t want you to do so by relying on dairy. Why? The Nurses’ Health Study also showed that those who had the highest milk consumption had the highest risk of bone fractures. This was a 12-year prospective study among 77,761 women ages 34 through 59 who had never used calcium supplements. Researchers concluded that the study data didn’t support the hypothesis
that higher consumption of milk or other food sources of calcium protected against hip or forearm fractures.
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If you look at countries with the highest milk consumption, they also tend to have the highest levels of osteoporosis, so there must be a connection.

DUMP THE DAIRY, KEEP THE CALCIUM

You do need good sources of calcium for optimal bone health and good health in general. Here are my top 10 bone health foods:

1. Flaxseeds
   
2. Spinach
   
3. Sardines
   
4. Walnuts
   
5. Brazil nuts
   
6. Greens (e.g., collard and mustard)
   
7. Sesame seeds
   
8. Wild salmon
   
9. Broccoli
   
10. Kale
    

Even when you know about all these problems, it can be hard to dump the dairy. In my experience, dairy products are some of the hardest for my clients to give up—and to be honest, they were pretty painful for me to let go of, too. They taste delicious, they show up everywhere, and for many of us, they are part of our earliest memories of comfort food: a warm cup of hot cocoa, a gooey grilled-cheese sandwich, a creamy serving of macaroni and cheese. Even the more adult versions—tangy
Greek-style yogurt, a little blue cheese on a salad, that one inch of foamy milk on a latte—are still seductive.

But you know, sometimes the things we crave are not just the things that make us feel good, they’re also the things we’re addicted to. As we’ve seen, when you develop reactivity to a food, your immune system produces this whole special set of antibodies that are custom designed to seek out that food and zap it. That creates a craving—we “want” the food so our antibodies can destroy it. The more reactive you are to dairy—and it is one of the most reactive foods—the more antibodies you’ve built up and the more intense your craving.

There is another possibly addictive factor here: casein, the protein found in milk and other dairy products. We know that casein can have a morphine-like effect in the brain. In fact, when you consume casein, your body actually produces casomorphins, which have the same physically soothing properties that morphine and other drugs have. So when you feel calmer and happier after eating that macaroni and cheese, that’s not just a psychological reaction. It’s also a biological reaction. Even whey protein, which is derived from dairy, might have a little bit of casein, which is why you might find yourself craving that cool whey shake.

When that craving hits, remember all those symptoms. And remember that creating all those antibodies and then giving them more of their favorite enemy to zap is not actually good for your body, even though it feels good. Your immune system shouldn’t go on high alert every time you pick up a container of yogurt. We want to save it for the real enemies. That temporary casomorphin high is just not worth it.

I find it interesting that dairy can also trigger autoimmune diseases. For example, it has been linked to multiple sclerosis.
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My feeling about dairy and autoimmune conditions is pretty much the same as my feeling about soy: if you have any kind of autoimmune condition, if your antinuclear antibodies (ANAs) are high, or if you have a family history of autoimmune disease (putting you at risk for an autoimmune condition), dump the dairy.

Dairy can also trigger autoimmune diseases.

About 75 percent of the worldwide population is lactose-intolerant—that is, most people in the world don’t have the enzymes they need to digest lactose found in dairy products. The U.S. rate of lactose intolerance is 25 percent, and anyone from any ethnicity might have it. Symptoms of lactose intolerance are not fun. They include gas, bloating, cramps and diarrhea, as well as itchy skin, eczema, wheezing, congestion, runny nose and watery eyes.

At this point, honestly, it’s hard to tell which dairy problems come from the milk itself and which are the result of the atrocious way we treat our
cows. Maybe in some ideal, alternate, organic universe—or even just 50 years ago—we could all be eating our dairy in peace and quiet. But the way today’s cows are treated—and then, the way today’s milk is treated—creates a whole host of new problems.

First, these days, just about all of our milk is pasteurized by law. Pasteurization is a process that kills bacteria, which includes some bad bacteria that we don’t want. But it also destroys the good bacteria that we
do
want, as well as some other vital ingredients in the milk: probiotics, vitamins and enzymes. Basically, to me, pasteurization creates a dead food. (It is very difficult to get raw cow’s milk and cheese, depending on the rules in your state. If you can get some, it’s definitely worth it. Check the Resources section on my website to find out what might be available in your area.)

Today, manufacturers have to pasteurize milk to counteract the ill effects of keeping cows in close confinement and then feeding them genetically modified corn. The corn causes acidosis, an acid overload in the cows that can produce ulcers and bleeding in the stomach. For this, the cows must be treated with antibiotics, which then go into
our
systems, making it more likely that we won’t respond well to antibiotics when we really need them and creating all sorts of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Meanwhile, though, the bacteria problem also requires that the milk be pasteurized.

Besides antibiotics, cows are often given rBGH, recombinant bovine growth hormone, a genetically modified hormone that basically forces them to give milk far more often than nature ever intended. A cow given rBGH produces 15 times as much milk as a natural cow.

Think about it for a moment. Cows aren’t supposed to give milk year-round at high doses. No calf needs that much milk. Only people consuming excessive amounts of dairy products need that much milk. We are essentially forcing cows to produce more milk than they ever would naturally.

The rBGH is bad for the cows and bad for us. First, rBGH amplifies levels of IGF-1, a growth hormone that promotes cancerous tumors in the breast, colon and prostate. As a result of all the extra milking, the cows tend to get infected udders, which requires antibiotic treatment and creates more pus in the milk.

In other words, the cows were producing more milk but lower quality milk. They didn’t have a rest period. They didn’t have time to rebuild and get the nutrients back that they needed. So we’re looking at a liquid with extra hormones, lots of dead pus cells and a whole load of antibiotics. Is that something you want to put inside your body? I didn’t think so.

Now, even though the milk from grass-fed cows is usually pasteurized, you’re starting with a whole other product. There’s a huge difference between grass-fed pastured cows and cows that are fed genetically modified corn and closely confined. That second group is getting that acid load, plus they’re living in conditions that are so unhealthy that they need those massive doses of antibiotics. Cows who feed on grass are much healthier.