Any idea how much sugar you eat in the course of a day? The amount might startle you — even if you don’t have a soda habit or a sweet tooth, per se.
Most people take in about 430 calories of added sugar every day. That’s a lot of waist-widening, nutrition-void sweetness! Here are three ways to add sweet without dipping into the sugar bowl.
3 Ways to Sweeten Stealthily
In your coffee pot: Brew your morning coffee with a cinnamon stick or vanilla bean and ditch the flavored creamers. Just 1 tablespoon of flavored creamer can add 6 grams of sugar. On your breakfast: Maple syrup adds about 50 calories and 12 grams of sugar per tablespoon. For a little sweet, add fresh fruit or pure fruit purees to pancakes and waffles. Or even oatmeal. In cookie recipes: You can generally get away with cutting the sugar by up to a third in recipes for cookies, cakes, or other baked goods. Try experimenting with a little less of the sweet stuff on your next batch of macaroons. The Unsweet Truth
Extra calories in sugar often turn into extra pounds, but that’s not the worst of it. Studies suggest high sugar consumption could also increase the risk of heart disease and certain types of cancer — particularly pancreatic cancer.
Neutralize LDL with This Party Snack Cholesterol. You know it’s bad for your heart and arteries. But you could make it less bad with this crunchy party snack: almonds.
Turns out almonds not only improve cholesterol levels but also help make LDL — the bad cholesterol — less likely to oxidize. Which is great, because LDL can do scary things when it’s oxidized, like block arteries and cut blood flow to the heart.
Almond Joy
Because oxidized LDL is even more likely to gunk-up your arteries than the unoxidized kind, recent study results on almonds and LDL oxidation helped secure the nut’s position in a heart-healthy diet. When older adults with high cholesterol ate a daily handful of almonds as part of a 4-week cholesterol-friendly diet, not only did the nut eaters suffer less bad-for-the-arteries LDL oxidation, but their LDL levels took a nosedive as well. Pass the almonds, please!
Dance of the Antioxidants
Other good news for the almond eaters: The study subjects’ healthy (HDL) cholesterol rose. How do almonds do it? Researchers suspect that the vast array of flavonoids and phenols in the skins play a role — so be sure to buy whole almonds with the skins on. Those skin-based nutrients may react synergistically with other antioxidants in your body to produce the cholesterol-controlling effects.
If you need to lose weight, avoiding alcohol is a wise decision. Not only is alcohol packed with empty calories and devoid of any nourishment, but its inhibiting of your fat-burning and fat-storing hormones provides a double and triple whammy against all your weight loss efforts. If that’s not bad enough, it lowers your inhibitions and changes your decision-making processes, causing you to make poor food choices. If you have questions about weight loss contact our team today.
Alcohol Lowers Blood Sugar
Making poor food choices is easy to do when your inhibitions are lowered by drinking. In addition, alcohol lowers your blood sugar levels, thereby making you feel hungrier and much more likely to consume excess calories. Add this to the calories from the alcohol, and you’ll quickly see how bad alcohol is for weight loss.
Significance
Even worse, when your body is attempting to metabolize alcohol and food that have been consumed together, it will use the energy from the alcohol first and store the food as fat. Because the body perceives alcohol as a poison and because it cannot store the energy from alcohol, its first priority is to eliminate it, while digesting and processing the food becomes secondary. That means your meal gets stored and synthesized as fat while the alcohol gets burned off.
Considerations
Because the food you’ve consumed is being stored and not properly metabolized, the nutrition from that food is not being absorbed by your body. The vitamins and minerals you need to be healthy are not utilized. Without adequate nutrition, your body is less healthy and more likely to store fat.
Warning
Drinking alcohol, even in moderation, can make you sluggish and negatively affect your performance at the gym, if you even make it to the gym, that is. Initially, alcohol does provide energy to the body, but it is a sedative and will slow you down, even the next day, because although it’s a sedative, it hinders and prevents restful sleep, making you tired and lethargic. Your workouts will suffer from alcohol, foiling your attempts at weight loss.
Weight loss is a goal that many people in Watchung aspire to, but not everyone reaches. Many don’t even make a dent, or end up gaining weight instead. Sometimes, these results are due to lack of motivation or poor initiative, but quite often the effort and determination are there, yet mistakes are being made that hinder the process. If you need help with weight loss in Watchung, contact our clinic today.
Counting Calories Incorrectly
Many weight loss gurus and nutritionists discourage counting calories, but if you choose that route anyway, make sure you count them correctly. Most people tend to overestimate their daily calorie requirements, taking in more than they need for successful weight loss. As an example, estimating 2,000 daily calories when 1,800 are actually what you need can keep an extra 20 pounds on your body. Those 200 calories per day don’t seem like much, but they add up.
Keeping the Exact Same Exercise Routine
Doing the same type of exercise day in and day out isn’t only boring, but it can cause you to hit plateaus that prevent additional weight loss. Try varying your routine to include interval training and circuit training that will rev up your calorie burning potential. Going for that moderate treadmill walk while chatting to a friend at the gym each day may be enjoyable, but it’s not your most effective weight loss option.
Ignoring Portion Sizes
One huge mistake many people make when losing weight is to adopt the belief that they can’t overeat if they are consuming healthy foods. This isn’t the case, and a lot of the time, you’ll end up consuming more calories than someone who isn’t concerned with eating healthy. Nutrients are important, but calories count, too. Eat slowly, chew your food well and stick to smaller portion sizes, no matter what you are eating.
Trying to Exercise a Poor Diet Away
One common thought among people that want to lose weight but don’t want to eat healthy foods, is that they can exercise away their dietary indiscretions. Eat what you want and then workout like a maniac to make it all better. This may work for a short time for someone with a speedy metabolism, but ultimately it will catch up to you and you will gain weight. Start with a nutritional approach and use exercise to refine your body and your weight.
Making Excuses
One of the biggest weight loss mistakes is making excuses for why you can’t lose weight. Some people blame their schedule or genetics or any other number of issues that is supposedly holding them back from being successful. If you are determined to lose weight, there is a way to make it happen, but making excuses for why it won’t isn’t the answer.
Our team at New Life Wellness & Weight Loss is here to help you with any questions you have. Feel free to contact us today.
