How
was Christmas? Did you manage to eat blindly? How did it feel? Did you find something
new?
I
hope it was fun and you enjoyed new flavors and textures...
For
this week try something challenging:
Eating
in 30 minutes, no more no less.
Do
not set a timer, just check the time when you sit down to eat and when you
remove your plates, I was impressed at how quickly and how little I was
savoring food, the interesting thing was that at the end of the week I ate a
little less than before.
How many news, emails, posters and commercials have
you watched talking about sugar pros and cons? How many advertisements do we
see every day promoting sweeteners alternatives for our food?
Since artificial sweeteners appeared, a war began between
sugarcane producers and calorie free sweeteners.
Much of the information we receive from the
benefits or harms of sugar, come from different organizations that wish us to
choose the certain types of sweeteners that are convenient to them. The versions of the truth are endless and many
tendentious.
This time I will introduce you to a new sweetener
called Stevia: it is a plant that has been cultivated for hundreds of years in
South America. Its leaves are very sweet
so it has been used to flavor drinks and medicines in several countries as
Japan, Paraguay, United States, Canada and recently Europe.
I am convinced that Stevia is a good choice for your
family for the following reasons:
1. Stevia concentrate is very sweet
Stevia’s sweetener substance, Rebaudioside, can be up
to 250-300 times sweeter than sugar.
2. Stevia does not add calories
Being so sweet, the amount you add to your food is
minimal so it does not add calories to your diet and helps you lose weight.
3. Stevia is heat stable
So you can cook with it and use it in hot drinks.
4. Stevia lasts 10 times more than sugar.
So instead of buying a kilo of sugar you will only
need 100g of Stevia.
5. Stevia is not addictive
Unlike sugar cane that acts like a drug in your brain,
Stevia is not addictive so it will help to reduce cravings for sweet foods.
6. Stevia is good with your teeth
It slows bacteria’s growth and also, by eating less
sugar, you will help maintain a good dental health.
7. Stevia is good for people with type 2 diabetes
mellitus
Since it contains no sugar, Stevia is a good
alternative for those who have diabetes and do not want to completely eliminate
sweet foods.
I do not pretend to tell you what to choose, but I
think that in life, it is important to know the advantages and disadvantages of
what you give to your body and your family, so you are able to give them the
healthier and safer products.
Remember this typical scene on TV? A girl has just ended a relationship
and the first thing she does is eat ice cream and watch romantic movies.
Sugar has been our partner since we were little; it has been the reward,
the prize and the consolation after a heartbreak. And we wonder: Why do we love it so much? Why
are we so drawn to candy or chocolate and not to other types of food?
Well, sugar consumption causes the brain to secrete substances that make
us feel better emotionally. There is
also the theory that eating sugar intermittently can change your behavior,
through addiction related hormones such as dopamine, creating dependency.
Let me tell you a little bit more about this character:
·Sugar began its career in the year 500 BC, in India.
·His first name was "Khanda" (does the word
Candy sounds familiar?).
·It became famous when it was crystallized in SXVIII.
·His discovery changed the course of human history: new
colonies were formed, increased slavery, migration and wars between countries.
In the last two decades sugar has stopped being so political and entered
into the health area. Consumption of sweetened
beverages increased by 135% between 1977 and 2001 and is considered one of the
causes of the world epidemic of overweight, which goes hand in hand with many
diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, depression and cancer.
Currently 1 billion adults worldwide suffer
from excess weight ... This is equivalent to all the inhabitants of the
American continent!
Let's do a little calculation:
An average soda can (360ml) has 150Kcal and 40-50g of sugar which is
equivalent to 5 tablespoons of sugar, if these calories are added to the daily
diet ...
A can of soda a day can lead to weight gain of 6.75 kg in 1 year!
I once had a patient who was 10kg overweight. Since his job made it very difficult to
change his diet I began with the simplest strategy, I asked him to switch from
soda to water. In just two months he
lost about 8kg, he could not believe that something as "harmless" as
soda would increase his weight so easily.
But, unfortunately, we not only eat sugar when we add it to the coffee
or have a coke. It's amazing the amount
of foods developed by the food industry, which use sugar to flavor, texture or
color to food. Click here to learn where
it is hidden:
Sounds terrible doesn’t it? Let’s do something about it… this week try
to add only half of the sugar to your coffee, drink water instead of soda or
just read the labels of the products you buy.
The good news is that you don’t have to resign to a bitter life. In the next blog I will introduce a new
member of the family of sweeteners, which will help you lose weight in a
natural and safe way.
Vasanti S Malik, Matthias B Schulze, and Frank B Hu Intake of
sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain:a systematic review Am J Clin Nutr 2006;84:274–88.
Nicole
M. Avena, Pedro Rada,
and Bartley G. Hoebel, Evidence for
sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent,
excessive sugar intake, Neurosci
Biobehav Rev. 2008 ; 32(1): 20–39.
Nicole M. Avena,1,2
Pedro Rada,1 and Bartley G. Hoebel, Sugar and Fat Bingeing
Have Notable Differences in Addictive-like Behavior, J. Nutr. 139:623–628,
2009.
Erik E. J. G. Aller 1,†,*, Itziar Abete 2,†, Arne Astrup 3, J. Alfredo
Martinez 2 and
Marleen A. van Baak, Starches, Sugars and Obesity, Nutrients 2011, 3, 341-369
Frequently, we receive information about new fantastic
diets, magical and wonderful food, stories of people who lost weight with the
least effort, devices which with only 5 minutes a day give you the body of a
model, etc.It's amazing the range of solutions
for a healthy life; the problem is that most of these strategies are designed
for financial gain rather than a benefit to health.
Unfortunately, lies disguised as acts of
magic abuse our desire to live better and sometimes fail, badly educate and
confuse those who want to reach a healthy weight, have a balanced life or just
feel better.
This time I chose the most common lies that have prevented
us in our attempts to improve our quality of life:
The Green Lie
How many times have we been sold the idea that if we
replace one meal (lunch or dinner) for a delicious salad, the path to thinness
is granted?.We prepare our salad and
eat in hopes of looser pants in a few days and we run into a horrible feeling:
hungry a few minutes later and the torture of waiting until dinner to eat
whatever we want.As the days pass, we
realize that our weight stays the same (or higher), we have been hungry for
days and expected results never come.All we get is more frustration, moodiness and being starved for a few
hours every day.
The thing about the salad is that it doesn’t have the
correct ingredients to make us feel satisfied: protein or fat, so we will be
"starving" just a few minutes after we have finished eating and
"biting" snacks until the next meal where we will eat even more.
Another mistake is the dressing: we prepare a lettuce
salad with lemon and add several tablespoons of that delicious dressing that
gives us 300 calories and we end up eating the same amount of energy of a
hamburger. Our effort was lost…
Tip:
Include salads in your diet but add some protein like tofu, chicken, fresh
cheese and a little olive oil or your favorite dressing (1 tsp).
Activity Lies
Our generation has grown up with the belief that the
harder and longer we work out, the healthier and thinner we will be. Time magazine recently published that excessive
exercise (more than 45 minutes a day), can be counterproductive as it increases
your hunger, so you end up eating more calories than the ones you burned at the
gym. Also, people who perform strenuous workouts tend to be more sedentary
during the day than those doing small training periods.
Tip:
Find an activity you like and practice it 3-5 times a week for 30 minutes, it doesn’t
have to be cardio to be effective, there are other options such as dance, yoga,
pilates or walking that will give very good results without much effort . Nor
is it necessary to join a gym, there are many free online options that can be
tailored to your schedule, abilities and tastes.
Tired Lies
And finally, rest. This is an essential ingredient for
achieving a good quality of life and often we ignore it. We think that staying in bed an extra hour on
Sundays will make up for the 6 days we spent working instead of sleeping. Daily activities (being fun or not) wear you
down physical and emotionally. If we do
not learn to recover, the body will eventually charge us the bill. Rest is a habit that includes the mind and
body: It is better to sleep 30 extra minutes a day than staying in bed 3 hours
on a Sunday.
Tips:
Try to go to bed 30 minutes earlier than you are used to and read a book or
just relax. Meditation is a very useful
tool for resting the mind and you don’t have to be a spiritual person to get a
benefit.
Remember that a new habit is established after 6 months
of practice; choose comfortable and easy changes so they stay for good.
