The Virgin Diet: The US Bestseller. JJ Virgin

      Food intolerance is an umbrella term that covers three ways other than food allergies that things can go wrong: true intolerance, food sensitivities and food reactions.

      

      Some people’s bodies simply have trouble tolerating certain foods, such as gluten (found in many grains, pastas, baked goods and processed and prepared foods), lactose (found in dairy products) or MSG (monosodium glutamate, a form of salt used as a flavour enhancer in many processed and prepared foods). Usually, this is because the intolerant people are lacking a specific chemical or enzyme that they need to digest the food. This is simply a genetic problem, and there isn’t much you can do about it except to avoid the foods. The good news is that on the Virgin Diet, you will avoid these difficult foods, which will make it easier for you to lose weight, look younger and feel healthier.

      

      Like allergies, food sensitivities are a type of immune reaction, but they mobilize a different type of antibody than food allergies do – not IgE, but its cousin, immunoglobulin G, or IgG. These IgG antibodies produce symptoms, too, but they act more slowly than IgE antibodies. Whereas allergic reactions are swift, food sensitivity symptoms don’t appear until several hours or even a few days after you’ve eaten, making it very difficult to link them to the problem food.

       Food sensitivities keep your immune system fired up on a chronic basis.

      Here’s another way in which allergic responses differ from sensitive ones: allergic responses are acute, whereas sensitivity responses are chronic. In other words, an allergy is a specific response: your immune system is activated, it flares up, it sends out its aggressive battery of IgE antibodies and, hopefully, it calms down. Food sensitivities, by contrast, can keep your immune system fired up on a chronic basis because you keep consuming the foods that set them off. If yoghurt, eggs, soy milk and whole-wheat bread are a frequent part of your diet – and especially if you’re eating them every day – your system is overwhelmed with problem foods, and your immune system never really calms down. This creates a number of problems, particularly inflammation, as I’ll explain a bit later. But first, let’s play food detective. Here are the typical symptoms of food sensitivity. Do any of them sound familiar to you?

       Digestive trouble, such as bloating, wind, constipation or diarrhoea

       Sleep issues, such as fatigue, insomnia or waking in the middle of the night

       Congestion, sneezing and coughing

       Muscle aches and joint pain

       Dark circles under your eyes

       Dull, lifeless hair

       Skin problems, including acne and rosacea

       Mood problems, such as lack of focus, brain fog, depression, anxiety or irritability

       Poor or unsteady energy

       Weight gain

       Premature ageing

      If you’re struggling with any of these symptoms, you are almost certainly struggling with food sensitivities and perhaps with other types of food intolerance as well.

      Food sensitivity is incredibly common. It affects at least 75 per cent of us and is a major factor in weight gain and weight retention. Again, the good news is that the Virgin Diet will help you cope with your food sensitivities, first by pulling problem foods from your diet and then by healing your system so you might eventually be able to tolerate some of those foods.

      

      When you load your body up with too many carbs or too much sugar, you’re setting yourself up for blood sugar spikes and crashes. This in turn messes with your insulin response – your body’s attempt to move sugar out of your blood and into your cells. Your insulin response works best when your blood sugar levels are nice and steady and in the ideal range. The Virgin Diet supports this process and helps you avoid food reactions by having you eat ideal amounts of clean, lean protein; healthy fats; non-starchy veggies; and high-fibre, low-glycaemic carbs every 4 to 6 hours. Yes, pulling the top 7 high-FI foods is important, but so is the timing of your meals and the combinations of foods you eat. Consuming something sweet or high-carb – a piece of cake, a handful of dried fruit or even a glass of orange juice – causes your blood sugar to spike and messes with your insulin response. As you’ll see in Chapter 7, artificial sweeteners can also create adverse reactions. Anything that interferes with blood sugar and insulin response disrupts your stress hormones – all of which makes you more likely to gain and retain weight.

      

      Food intolerance produces a host of symptoms, which is bad enough. But it also causes a number of interrelated problems, each of which makes all the others worse. One of those problems is inflammation, a major cause of weight gain and weight-loss resistance.

      Ironically, inflammation is a necessary by-product of any intense immune response – that is, it’s supposed to help your system heal. When your body is invaded by a toxin, bacteria or a virus or traumatized by a wound, your immune system swiftly triggers a cascade of healing and protective chemicals that rush to the site. You can think of your immune system as an ambulance that comes roaring to the rescue after an accident.

      But suppose the ambulance driver is so anxious to reach you that he crashes right through the side of your house? That’s inflammation – the negative side effects of the healing process.

       Inflammation puts on the pounds in a number of different ways.

      The four classic inflammatory responses are redness, heat, pain and swelling, symptoms that are easily visible when the injury can be seen. Think of how a cut on your finger turns red and how warm and tender the skin becomes, or imagine how an insect bite on your ankle might swell. Those reactions occur inside your body, too, when a high-FI food triggers an immune reaction. Your digestive tract becomes inflamed. If you frequently eat foods that inflame your system – either foods to which you’re sensitive or foods that contain inflammatory fats (e.g., dairy, eggs and corn) – then you’re likely to suffer from chronic low-grade inflammation. And you’re running the risk of weight-loss resistance and obesity.

      Inflammation puts on the pounds in a number of different ways:

       Chemical changes. Inflammation makes your body resistant to key chemical messengers that help you burn fat, tolerate stress and normalize your appetite and cravings. For example, inflammation keeps your body from ‘hearing’ cortisol, the key stress hormone. As a result, your cortisol levels rise, stressing you out, storing fat around your waist and causing you to crave carbs. Cortisol also lowers your serotonin, the feel-good brain chemical that helps you feel calm and optimistic and sleep well. Eventually, your body gets tired of producing all that excess cortisol, and your levels drop, causing you to feel sluggish, unmotivated and fatigued.

       Inflammation