by Melissa Diane Smith

(Opinion) – If your New Year’s resolution is to lose excess weight in 2012, don’t make the mistake that virtually everybody makes and follow a weight-loss strategy that’s destined to fail. Most people believe that exercise is the key to losing weight. Unfortunately, that’s dead wrong. It’s nice to believe we can eat anything we want and burn off the calories to lose weight, but that just doesn’t work in practice. As I wrote about before in “Think You Need to Exercise Harder to Lose Weight? Think Again,” research shows that what we eat is the most important factor in whether we lose weight or not.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

The gluten-free diet is one of the most talked-about and followed diets these days for good reason: It’s the nutritional answer for the growing number of people who learn they are gluten intolerant. However, few people realize it, but eating gluten free can harm health in other ways when we focus only on “gluten-free” and end up eating a gluten-free version of the Standard American Diet that leads to ill health. Many people are doing that, unknowingly making mistakes with their diet that lead to weight gain, elevated blood sugar, heart disease risk factors, new allergies, immune system problems, and more.

I will address these issues and the little-covered topic, “It’s Gluten Free but Is It Healthy?” at the Southern Arizona Celiac Support (SACS) general meeting on Saturday, January 14, 2012, at 10:00 a.m. In my presentation, I’ll explain the most common mistakes people make with the gluten-free diet that lead to health problems and cover key food concepts that promote better health. My presentation will take place at Pima Community College, 4905 E. Broadway Blvd., and will be immediately followed by book signings of Going Against the Grain and my follow-up book Gluten Free Throughout the Year.

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I am happy to announce that Tucson Meet Yourself Folklife Festival, which has a special Health and Wellness focus this year, has selected me to speak on two different but related topics. My first presentation will be about “Going Against the Grain to Combat Obesity and Diabetes” on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011, at 3 p.m. The second one, “It’s Gluten Free, but Is It Healthy?” will be the next day, on Sunday, October 16, 2011, at 3 p.m. Both presentations will take place in the lower level of the Joel D. Valdez Main Library at 101 N. Stone Ave. in downtown Tucson and will be followed by book signings of both my books, Going Against the Grain and Gluten Free Throughout the Year, at the Southern Arizona Celiac Support (SACS) booth in the Jacome Plaza that is virtually next door to the library.

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Not sure what changing your diet can do for you? My client Marcia who wrote the following testimonial wasn’t sure at the beginning either but she has been completely won over by what my individualized nutrition coaching program is doing for her. So are her doctors, including one who wrote me, congratulated me on the wonderful results she has had, and said “Way to go!”

I am so grateful that I am able to help people like Marcia in this way! Keep in mind that this is a person who was eating gluten free to begin with, but still needed some fine-tuning to her diet. Here’s Marcia’s story:

I originally contacted Melissa about how and what to eat because of multiple food sensitivities I was recently diagnosed with (I have been gluten-free for almost 9 years). Working with Melissa has taught me to eat properly for me. She set me up with a personalized diet for my sensitivities, symptoms and conditions. I definitely eat against the grain! In addition to grains, I avoid dairy, eggs, beans, processed foods and all GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Eliminating the GMOs has made the most impact for me.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

“Ingredients for change” was the theme of a media luncheon this year at Natural Products Expo West, the largest natural foods and products convention in the world. It also symbolized what I saw at a number of talks, receptions, and food booths at the convention March 10-13, 2011.

I wrote a few months ago about growing trends toward gluten-free, organic, and sustainable foods in the restaurant business. I’m glad to report that those trends are evident in the natural foods industry, too. There is also growing awareness about the hazards of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and an increased push from many health food manufacturers and retailers to remove GMOs from their products and stores.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

(Opinion) – Refined carbs, not fats, are what is making us fat and sick. It isn’t really news, but I guess it is when a mainstream newspaper like the Los Angeles Times runs a big feature on the topic right before the holidays.

“Fat is not the problem,” Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, told the Times. “If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight and diabetes and other metabolic diseases (such as metabolic syndrome or Syndrome X).”

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The more you go against the grain during the holiday season, the healthier you’ll tend to be. If you know that in theory but need a little practical help enacting that in your life, let me remind you of my new book published earlier this year, Gluten Free Throughout the Year. With its month-to-month format, this companion guide to Going Against the Grain can help you through all times of year, and offers gluten-free recipes such as Pink Rice with Roasted Asparagus and Mushrooms and grain-free recipes including Chestnut Stuffing, Savory Stuffing, Butternut Squash with Fresh Sage, Pecan-Pear Autumn Sundaes, and No-Bake Dried Fruit-Cocoa Balls, all of which are very appropriate for the holidays.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

Religiously avoiding foods that contain high-fructose corn syrup? You’ll also need to watch out for foods that contain corn sugar, a change in name that appears to be coming and means the same thing.

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The latest stop on my virtual book tour for Gluten Free Throughout the Year was an interview at GlutenFreeFitness.com, which was posted as a podcast on Sept. 8th. Host Erin Elberson who has similar nutrition philosophies as I do interviewed me and we had an engaging chat that covered a lot of territory. We discussed helpful-for-health information for people who have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity and even for people who don’t. If you’d like to hear the real scoop on gluten-free and grain-free diets and how you can personalize the info to design the best diet for you for improved health, listen to the podcast right now.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

(Opinion) You know the gluten-free diet is gradually going mainstream when it’s covered on the Today Show on NBC. That’s exactly what happened on Wednesday, August 11th, when the gluten-free diet was featured on an “Eat Smart Today” segment of the show. (View most of the video of that segment here.)

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