Diet and nutrition advice can be complicated and conflicting. There is so much readily available advice now days that it can be over whelming.
I have put together some top tips for shedding the pounds and more importantly keeping them off.
Here I will outline why simple carbohydrates are bad for a healthy diet and why sugar should be avoided from your diet.
We offer comprehensive nutritional advice where together we can look at ways of improving your diet, so your hormones are functioning as they should be and you are utilising your energy efficiently, so your body is not storing your energy at fat. We will, help you implement the steps below into your diet. This is diet for life, no fads, just science.
The cost for this is just £30.00 or completely FREE if you book the 8 week transformation course.
Here are a list of 10 steps for you to look at in your diet.
Drink plenty of water and stay well hydrated. It is very common for people to misinterpret thirst for hunger. At least 3 pints a day at a minimum. Reach for a glass of water before you eat to ensure you are hungry.
Make sure half of your plate is filled with dark vegetables full of nutrients and healthy complex carbohydrates.
Reduce your refined sugar intake significantly or where possible cut it out completely. I don’t recommend replacing sugar with alternatives as they are not particularly good for you.
Use fruit for a sweet treat avoiding apples, cherries, mangoes, watermelon and pears as these are high in fructose. A good option would be honeydew melon, cantaloupe, bananas, blueberries, strawberries and oranges, these are all low in fructose. Also, avoid maple syrup, honey, and corn syrup as these are also high in Fructose.
Cook in olive or coconut oil and never use vegetable oils.
How many meals a day or how often is up to you overall intake is not exceeding the recommended daily calorie intake and the calories you are eating are not causing issues with your hormonal balances.
Reduce or completely cut out carbohydrates from grains. Never eat simple carbohydrates as these have a high GI and so burn very quickly and are empty calories containing no nutrients or fibre. If you are going to have carbohydrates make sure they are complex carbohydrates which have a low GI and are found in peas, beans, whole grains and vegetables.
Never eat processed food. Watch out for low calorie, low fat foods, especially processed ones. Always check the ingredients and check the sugar content. Eat whole foods that are in their natural state.
Limit your saturated fat intake, try and avoid trans fats, hydrogenated vegetable oils. All fat contains saturated and unsaturated fat but try to ensure you are eating more unsaturated fats that saturated. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats help to maintain healthy cholesterol levels and found in olive oil, rapeseed oil, avocados, nuts and seeds.
10. Check your portion sizes. For the first couple of weeks of
re-evaluating your diet weigh your portions out.
Why sugar is so bad for us?
Sugar is a toxin to the body. When eat sugar, insulin is released from the pancreas to enable the body to take glucose and fructose from the sugar. Glucose can then be absorbed by cells in the muscles, fat and liver and used as an energy source and to regulate the blood sugar levels. Fructose however, can’t be absorbed by the cells, it can only be metabolised by the liver. This is then turned into fat, stored and unless needed as energy is deposited as fat. The more sugar we eat the more insulin is needed to regulate the blood sugar, therefore unless used, is generating more fat. Your body prefers fat as an energy source, however if sugar is available, it will use this first, as this is easier to access as an energy source for the body to utilise.
The more sugar we consume the more our bodies become immune to insulin and this is where type 2 diabetes becomes a problem. Sugar is also highly addictive and mood altering. Sugar causes opiate and dopamine activity just like a drug does within the brain. For many people, including myself, once we have had some, we will probably want more.
Leptin is a hormone, released to tell us we are full while eating. When our bodies are continuously flooded with sugar this hormone is unable to function and you become Leptin resistant. This means that your brain doesn’t tell you have had enough to eat, even when your fat cells are full and over flowing. Will power is not going be enough to stop eating, when leptin is not functioning, as this is a primeval function of our bodies to keep us alive.
Ghrelin is a hormone that tells us we are hungry. When we consume too much sugar this hormone is over produced and we feel hungrier.
To summarise:
Sugar causes insulin to be produced, converting sugar to fat, Leptin is unable to function telling your brain you have not eaten enough and producing cravings, Gherlin is over produced making us feel ravenous. These are not good combinations and will only result in your health, weight and fitness suffering.
This explains why we are told sugar is so bad for us. The hormones that our bodies naturally release, to tell our brains how to respond to food, just don’t work as they should do.
The same process happens with simple carbohydrates, they are also turned into sugar for energy. If the amount of energy used is less than the amount consumed, the glucose and fructose from the carbohydrates will turn into fat. We only need 1-2 teaspoons of sugar within our bodies for them to function healthily.
So, you can see if our diet is high in sugar and simple carbohydrates then our hormones can’t and won’t respond as they have evolved to do so and we will get fat.
