Food Allergy and Gluten-Free Weight Loss Virtual Book Publicity Tour December 2011/January/February 2012

Authors on Tour, Featured — By Dorothy Thompson on November 10, 2011 at 5:23 pm

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Join Nicolette M. Dumke, author of the health/fitness book, Food Allergy and Gluten-Free Weight Loss: Control Your Body Chemistry, Reduce Inflammation, and Improve Your Health (Allergy Adapt, Inc.), as she virtually tours the blogosphere December 5 2011 – February 17 2012 on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!

About Nicolette M. Dumke

Nickie Dumke enjoys helping people with food allergies and gluten intolerance find solutions to their health and weight problems. She began writing books to help others with multiple food allergies over 20 years ago and the process culminated in The Ultimate Food Allergy Cookbook and Survival Guide. She says, “This book contains everything I know to help with food allergies,” and it has helped many people come back from near-starvation. Her other books address issues such as how to deal with time and money pressures on special diets, keeping allergic children happy on their diets, and more. A few years ago, while listening to the struggles of an allergic friend on the Weight Watchers™ diet, she remembered her own weight struggles* many years ago and thought, “There has to be a better way.” This was the beginning of a new quest, and she is now helping those who are overweight due to inflammation (often due to unsuspected food allergies) or high-in-rice gluten-free diets, as well as those who are not food sensitive but want to lose weight permanently, healthily, and without feeling hungry and deprived. Her unique approach to weight and health presented in Food Allergy and Gluten-Free Weight Loss is based on body physiology and reveals why conventional weight-loss diets work against rather than with our bodies and therefore rarely result in permanent weight loss. * (Nickie’s weight loss story, briefly, is that in her early 20s she could not lose on a calorie-counting diet in spite of repeatedly further reducing the number of calories she ate and swimming vigorously and often. Then she found a diet based on blood sugar control, lost weight without being hungry, and still weighs what she did in her mid-20s). Nickie has had multiple food allergies for 30 years and has been cooking for special diets for family members and friends for even longer. Regardless of how complex your dietary needs are or how much or little cooking you have done, she has the books and recipes you need. Her books present the science behind multiple food allergies and weight control in an easily-understood manner. She has BS degrees in medical technology and microbiology. She and her husband live in Louisville, Colorado and have two grown sons. You can visit Nickie’s websites at http://www.foodallergyandglutenfreeweightloss.com and http://www.food-allergy.org.

About Food Allergy and Gluten-Free Weight Loss

Food Allergy and Gluten-Free Weight Loss answers the question, “Why is it so hard to lose weight?” Because it’s hard to put a puzzle together if you’re missing some of the pieces. We’ve been missing or ignoring the most important pieces in the puzzle of how our bodies determine whether to store or burn fat. Those puzzle pieces are hormones such as insulin, cortisol, leptin, and others. In addition, we’ve been given some puzzle pieces that don’t belong or fit in the weight-control puzzle. Much of what we’ve heard about dieting and exercise is incorrect and can cause loss of muscle mass instead of fat or even result in weight gain. The idea that weight is determined solely by “calories in minus calories out” is an assumption not based in reality. Most weight-loss diets require us to endure hunger much of the time, but hunger means that our blood sugar is falling or low and our insulin level may be rising. Prolonged hunger leads to the release of adrenal hormones, and the hormonal cascade which follows results in the inability to burn our own body fat as well as causing any fat we eat to be stored rather than burned to give us energy. Another problem with most weight loss diets is that they strictly dictate food choices, lack the flexibility that those on special diets for food allergies or gluten-intolerance require, and deprive us of pleasure. Individuals with food allergies face additional weight-loss challenges such as inflammation due to allergies which can lead to our master weight control hormone, leptin, being unable to do its job of maintaining a healthy weight. Those with gluten intolerance often eat a diet too high rice. Rice is the only grain which is high on the glycemic index in its whole grain form; thus eating too much of it will raise insulin levels and cause the body to deposit fat. Although the recipes in this book were developed for those on special diets, non-sensitive people will enjoy them as well, and the weight loss principles in this book will help anyone lose weight. (A chapter of recipes made with wheat and other problematic foods is included for those on unrestricted diets). The most frustrating deficiency of conventional weight loss diets is that they don’t work long-term. Low-calorie, low-fat diets can lead to loss of muscle mass, and with less muscle to burn calories, this type of diet effectively reduces metabolic rate so we need less food. Rare is the person who loses weight by counting calories and keeps it off after they liberalize their diet! However, continual dieting for the rest of your life is not the way you need to live, and you do not have to be deprived of pleasure in order to lose weight. Overweight is not due to a lack of willpower. Rather, it is due to a chemical imbalance in our bodies. Once we begin to correct that imbalance by applying the principles in Food Allergy and Gluten-Free Weight Loss, we can lose weight without hunger or deprivation and can maintain a healthy weight permanently and easily by regaining normal self-regulating hormonal control of our weight.

Book Excerpt:

Why have we cut calories, nearly eliminated fat, exercised strenuously, and yet not lost weight or kept it off? It’s because we were not working with our bodies. Instead, our efforts were based on the faulty assumption that “calories in minus calories out” is the major or only determiner of weight. We were ignoring the most important factors in our bodies’ decisions about whether to store or burn fat – hormones such as insulin, cortisol, leptin, and others… The hormone insulin has a major influence on weight and hunger. High levels of insulin make us feel hungry and activate the enzyme lipoprotein lipase which takes fatty acids from the blood and stores them as triglycerides in fat cells. Therefore, by preventing insulin spikes, you avoid storing recently eaten fat and leave it in your bloodstream to be used for energy. Low blood insulin levels allow the enzyme triglyceride lipase to be active. This enzyme promotes the breakdown of the triglycerides stored in fat cells and liberates the fatty acids from them into the bloodstream to be used for fuel. Thus, by keeping your insulin levels stable and low, you can flip your fat control switch from “store” to “burn.”… The most important hormone for long-term maintenance of a healthy weight is leptin. However, it can be made ineffective by inflammation. You may be thinking, “I don’t have any major problems with inflammation.” Read the next few paragraphs and then decide whether this applies to you. Sometimes inflammation is obvious – it causes redness, warmth, and/or pain. However, chronic inflammation can be silent. If you are overweight, you may not know it, but you are experiencing silent inflammation. As we gain weight, our bodies do not add more fat cells. The fat cells we already have become larger and are filled with more fat instead. They may leak as they are stretched more and more. Then immune cells called macrophages come in to clean up the mess. The macrophages release inflammatory chemicals in the fatty tissues as they are cleaning up… Your body counteracts this silent inflammation by producing anti-inflammatory substances. Some of these interfere with the function of the hormone leptin. In optimally healthy people, leptin is responsible for automatically maintaining weight at the right level. Some people do not gain weight no matter what they eat. If they overeat, their well-functioning leptin control system boosts their metabolism and decreases their appetite to restore them to their best weight. When leptin is made ineffective by inflammation, the dysfunction is called leptin resistance, meaning that even though you have normal or high levels of leptin, your leptin does not work to suppress appetite and speed metabolism, thus maintaining a healthy weight. This may sound like a depressing vicious cycle. Excess fat leads to inflammation and the substances that counteract inflammation (which are necessary to keep silent inflammation from causing symptoms) make it impossible for the body’s weight-control hormone, leptin, to function properly. Don’t despair though – there is a way to break this vicious cycle. There is also good news: As you slim down, leptin resistance abates and when you reach a healthy weight, you won’t have to struggle to maintain your weight. Your newly-functional leptin system will control your appetite and weight.

Food Allergy and Gluten-Free Weight Loss Virtual Book Publicity Tour Schedule

Monday, December 5

Interviewed at Blogcritics

Tuesday, December 6

Interviewed at Beyond the Books

Wednesday, December 7

Book reviewed at Year of Jubilee Reviews

Thursday, December 8

Interviewed at Review From Here

Friday, December 9

Guest blogging at Literarily Speaking

Monday, December 12

Guest blogging at Literary Backstories

Tuesday, December 13

Guest blogging at The Book Faery Reviews

Wednesday, December 14

Book reviewed at The Book Faery Reviews

Thursday, December 15

Book reviewed at Splashes of Joy

Friday, December 16

Book reviewed at Live to Read

Tuesday, January 3

Book reviewed at CarlyBird’s Home

Wednesday, January 4

Interviewed at Examiner

Thursday, January 5

Book reviewed at Create With Joy

Friday, January 6

Guest blogging at As the Pages Turn

Monday, January 9

Interviewed at Cafe of Dreams

Tuesday, January 10

Book Giveaway at Gluten Free Chickie

Wednesday, January 11

Guest blogging at Libby’s Library

Thursday, January 12

Guest blogging at Literal Exposure

Friday, January 13

Guest blogging at Peeking Between the Pages

Monday, January 16

Guest blogging at Cafe of Dreams

Wednesday, January 18

Book reviewed at Bless Their Hearts Mom

Thursday, January 19

Book reviewed at The Book Faery Reviews

Wednesday, January 25

Book reviewed at Bookworm Hollow

Thursday, January 26

Guest blogging at The Book Bin

Friday, January 27

Chat with Nicolette at Pump Up Your Book January 2012 Authors on Tour Chat/Book Giveaway!

Monday, February 6

Interviewed at The Book Connection

Tuesday, February 7

Guest blogging at Writing Daze

Thursday, February 9

Guest blogging at Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews

Friday, February 10

Interviewed at The Writer’s Life

Monday, February 13

Nicolette shares a yummy recipe with us at Yumzees

Tuesday, February 14

Interviewed at Divine Caroline

Wednesday, February 15

Interviewed at Broowaha

Thursday, February 16

Interviewed at American Chronicle

Monday, February 20

Read the first chapter at Beyond the Books

Friday, March 9

Book reviewed at Literarily Speaking

Nicolette Dunke’s FOOD ALLERGY AND GLUTEN-FREE WEIGHT LOSS VIRTUAL BOOK PUBLICITY TOUR will officially begin on December 5 2011 and end on February 17 2012. Please contact Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife(at)gmail.com if you are interested in hosting and/or reviewing her book. Thank you!