This is the post excerpt.
Welcome to my blog about nutrition! My name is Lisa and I have been a Registered Dietitian for 17 years now. I am passionate about eating healthy and loving Jesus and people. I hope you enjoy learning about nutrition and God as much as I do.
Welcome to 2020! It’s a brand new year with brand new opportunities, experiences, and goals to be met! Yep, that’s right- those pesky New Year’s resolutions. The two biggest categories of resolutions are money and health.
Making resolutions to change your health status is probably the biggest resolution made from year to year. And individuals and corporations alike are ready to capitalize on your goals.
The winter months bring the highest sales of diet books, nutrition supplements, exercise equipment, diet plans, and meal replacements. Surprise, surprise. A major problem with these diets is that most of them promise quick fixes and claim “instant weight loss” and “fast results.” However, if you want weight loss and healthy habits to last, you can’t have quick fixes and fast results.
Also worth mentioning, God’s answer to 2020 might not be more resolutions, but more rest. We live in a culture that wants to do everything, see everything, travel everywhere, read every book, see every movie, take in every TV show, meet every person, say Yes to every request, go to every party, kill it at every aspect of our job, work out every day, etc. It wants to transgress the limitations of our humanity. It wants to be God. It wants to be immortal. It’s Genesis 3 all over again. You step out of the limitations of the beautiful garden that God has put us in.
The most important thing to remember when making new habits is that you did not create your old ones overnight. The same thing goes with weight loss. If you want to lose weight, remember that you didn’t gain it quickly and you won’t lose it quickly. A synonym for fast dieting is fad dieting. Fad diets are nothing new, and fad diets don’t work.
With all the focus on weight in our society, it isn’t surprising that millions of people fall prey to fad diets and bogus weight-loss products. Conflicting claims, testimonials and hype by so-called “experts” can confuse even the most informed consumers. The bottom line is simple: If a diet or product sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
There are no foods or pills that magically burn fat. No super foods will alter your genetic code. No products will miraculously melt fat while you watch TV or sleep. Some ingredients in supplements and herbal products can be dangerous and even deadly for some people.
Steer clear of any diet plans, pills and products that make the following claims:
Rapid Weight Loss
Slow, steady weight loss is more likely to last than dramatic weight changes. Healthy plans aim for a loss of no more than ½ pound to 1 pound per week. If you lose weight quickly, you’ll lose muscle, bone and water. You also will be more likely to regain the pounds quickly afterwards.
Quantities and Limitations
Ditch diets that allow unlimited quantities of any food, such as grapefruit and cabbage soup. It’s boring to eat the same thing over and over and hard to stick with monotonous plans. Avoid any diet that eliminates or severely restricts entire food groups, such as carbohydrates. Even if you take a multivitamin, you’ll still miss some critical nutrients.
Specific Food Combinations
There is no evidence that combining certain foods or eating foods at specific times of day will help with weight loss. Eating the “wrong” combinations of food doesn’t cause them to turn to fat immediately or to produce toxins in your intestines, as some plans claim.
Rigid Menus
Life is already complicated enough. Limiting food choices or following rigid meal plans can be an overwhelming, distasteful task. With any new diet, always ask yourself: “Can I eat this way for the rest of my life?” If the answer is no, the plan is not for you.
No Need to Exercise
Regular physical activity is essential for good health and healthy weight management. The key to success is to find physical activities that you enjoy and then to aim for 30 to 60 minutes of activity on most days of the week.
If you’re struggling to stay connected to God and live a healthy lifestyle, come see me and start this year off right!
Welcome to 2019!
It is a brand new year with brand new opportunities, experiences, and goals to be met! Yep, that’s right- those pesky New Year’s resolutions. The two biggest categories of resolutions are money and health. Making resolutions to change your health status is probably the biggest resolution made from year to year. And individuals and corporations alike are ready to capitalize on your goals.
The winter months bring the highest sales of diet books, nutrition supplements, exercise equipment, diet plans, and meal replacements. Surprise, surprise. A major problem with these diets is that most of them promise quick fixes and claim “instant weight loss” and “fast results.” However, if you want weight loss and healthy habits to last, you can’t have quick fixes and fast results.
The most important thing to remember when making new habits is that you did not create your old ones overnight. The same thing goes with weight loss. If you want to lose weight, remember that you didn’t gain it quickly and you won’t lose it quickly. A synonym for fast dieting is fad dieting. Fad diets are nothing new, and fad diets don’t work.
With all the focus on weight in our society, it isn’t surprising that millions of people fall prey to fad diets and bogus weight-loss products. Conflicting claims, testimonials and hype by so-called “experts” can confuse even the most informed consumers. The bottom line is simple: If a diet or product sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
There are no foods or pills that magically burn fat. No super foods will alter your genetic code. No products will miraculously melt fat while you watch TV or sleep. Some ingredients in supplements and herbal products can be dangerous and even deadly for some people.
Steer clear of any diet plans, pills and products that make the following claims:
Rapid Weight Loss
Slow, steady weight loss is more likely to last than dramatic weight changes. Healthy plans aim for a loss of no more than ½ pound to 1 pound per week. If you lose weight quickly, you’ll lose muscle, bone and water. You also will be more likely to regain the pounds quickly afterwards.
Quantities and Limitations
Ditch diets that allow unlimited quantities of any food, such as grapefruit and cabbage soup. It’s boring to eat the same thing over and over and hard to stick with monotonous plans. Avoid any diet that eliminates or severely restricts entire food groups, such as carbohydrates. Even if you take a multivitamin, you’ll still miss some critical nutrients.
Specific Food Combinations
There is no evidence that combining certain foods or eating foods at specific times of day will help with weight loss. Eating the “wrong” combinations of food doesn’t cause them to turn to fat immediately or to produce toxins in your intestines, as some plans claim.
Rigid Menus
Life is already complicated enough. Limiting food choices or following rigid meal plans can be an overwhelming, distasteful task. With any new diet, always ask yourself: “Can I eat this way for the rest of my life?” If the answer is no, the plan is not for you.
No Need to Exercise
Regular physical activity is essential for good health and healthy weight management. The key to success is to find physical activities that you enjoy and then to aim for 30 to 60 minutes of activity on most days of the week.
If you want to maintain a healthy weight, build muscle and lose fat, the best path is a lifelong combination of eating smarter and moving more. For a personalized plan, tailored to your lifestyle and food preferences, come see me and start this year off right!
For those of you that know me, you know I LOVE coffee. Over the years I have tried to breakup with coffee because it’s counterproductive with my adrenal fatigue and high cortisol issues, but those breakups have never lasted long. My co-dependent self would always return to my favorite beverage of choice until I forced another breakup. But then I met Matcha…. Oh how do I love thee? Matcha!
What is Matcha?
Matcha is premium green tea powder from Japan used for drinking as tea or as an ingredient in recipes. While other green teas are grown throughout the world, matcha is unique to Japan. It is the heart of the Japanese way of tea and has been celebrated in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony for hundreds of years.
Amongst its many health benefits, matcha…
A cup of matcha can have up to 10 x more nutritional value than brewed green tea.
With all that being said… it was so much easier to end it with my beloved coffee. However, I can’t promise that I won’t invite coffee over now and then. We just can’t have the same love relationship like we have had in the past. It’s just healthier this way. And I am not missing the coffee breath one bit!
Matcha also contains L-Theanine, an amino acid that helps your body to process caffeine differently and create a state of calm alertness. While one serving of matcha has much less caffeine than coffee, it provides a less jittery, more sustained energy boost – with no crash at the end. L-Theanine also improves focus and helps you concentrate.
What type should I buy?
Matcha Wellness makes an organic matcha that I like. You can purchase it on Amazon, but most days you still may see me going through the Starbucks’ drive through and settling for their matcha latte with almond milk…well…because it’s easier that way. Whatever kind you choose, do your research if you want to get the best health benefits from your beverage of choice.
Here’s to good health and yummy lattes!
Cheers!
Emotional Eating
You are a spirit. You have a soul (your mind and emotions). And you live in a body. To access the abundant life that Jesus promised us, we have to take care of all three of these areas. Just like the Holy Trinity consist of three different persons yet is one in the same God, you too are a trinity since you’re made in His image. God has emotions and we have emotions too. Life isn’t fair or easy, and at times, life really hurts. Yet we often ignore the needs of our souls. I have a story and I know you do too.
Being raised by a Vietnam vet wasn’t easy. Watching my mom work multiple jobs just to put food on the table when I was young wasn’t easy. Feeling discarded and unimportant most of my childhood wasn’t easy. Working full time while attending college wasn’t easy. Experiencing my heart breaking during relationship breakups wasn’t easy. Dating an emotionally and physically abusive man wasn’t easy. Learning how to overcome an under active thyroid wasn’t easy. Raising babies and working simultaneously wasn’t easy. Surviving a marriage crisis when I was pregnant with baby number 3 wasn’t easy. Burying my father-in-law way too early wasn’t easy. Having to give up running because of a physical injury wasn’t easy. Being wronged by those that I love wasn’t easy. Accepting that I can not fix all my relationships wasn’t easy. Watching my kids fail and being unable to stop it from happening wasn’t easy.
What’s your story? Have you even taken the time to think about it? We all have a story. All of us truly are broken and beloved individuals. I imagine the world you live in is quick to point out your brokenness. Does your soul know you are beloved by God? Don’t be too quick to answer. Your emotions and reactions are likely to reveal what your soul truly believes. What is the state of your soul? Or as I like to say… What is the state of your heart?
Emotional Eating can be defined a lot of ways. No matter how you define it, if you’re eating and you’re not hungry…. then you’re partaking in emotional eating.
Since the beginning of time, food has been used as more than just a source of nutrition. Food is used to celebrate special occasions, comfort in times of grief, provide a way to share within a community, and express love and affection. (Not to brag….. BUT I make a mean sugar cookie…. and a celebration is NOT a celebration in my book without some of my fabulous sugar cookies.) None of these things are wrong, but all of these things can get out of control if we allow ourselves to eat our emotions.
Get to the Heart of It
For us Americans, food is far from scarce. Hence, we often use food to meet our emotional needs as much as our physical needs. This has become such a bad habit for us that personally we can’t even recognize that it isn’t food we are craving. We are actually hungry…possibly even starving for God. Spiritually speaking, there is a hunger for God that is often not recognized for what it is. It may be an empty feeling, rejection, hurt, inability to control a situation, confusion, shame, guilt, a sense of longing, even loneliness in the midst of people. We start looking for ways to make the feelings go away. In a sense, we begin to look for food that will fill the hole or mask the pangs of hunger within.
What is the Difference Between Physical and Emotional Hunger?
Physical Hunger
Emotional Hunger
Are You an Emotional Eating?
When you catch yourself eating when you’re not hungry or giving into a binge, spend some time with God in reflection so together you can figure out why it happened. I often find myself telling my clients, this isn’t really a nutrition problem… it’s a heart problem. Don’t make the mistake of filling up on food when you really need to be filling up on God, His word, His truths, His strength, His Spirit, and His power.
Hope is to our soul what energy is to our body. Just like our bodies must have energy to keep going, our souls must have hope to keep going. “People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4 Sometimes we simply make the mistake of feeding our bodies instead of our souls. To put it differently, it’s not our bodies that are starving and that need to be filled, but our souls.
Trusting God with your feelings is an act of worship. God can handle your emotions. He gave them to you, after all. He can handle your anger, doubt, fear, shame, questions, grief, and even your complaints. Be honest. Tell God exactly how you feel. The right response to unexplained tragedy is not “grin and bear it” but honestly telling God your struggle. Lamentations 2:19 says, “Rise during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord.”
And when you don’t know what to pray, remember… And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. (Romans 8:26-28)
The valleys in life are dark places and many of us turn to food when we need to be turning to God. Have life’s difficulties caught you off guard? Do you wonder if God is good? Are you puzzled over how a frustrating, hurtful, or shocking event could possibly contribute to anything good? Though you may not see the good yet (or ever in this life), keep your eyes on God. If He weren’t going to use that situation for your good, it wouldn’t have happened. He has to sign off on every single thing that touches your life. That’s not to say He wanted it—God is not the cause of evil, but He is the solution.
To see an article I wrote with the help of Matthew Pryor, owner of Body Tithe University, on the importance of Vitamin D… click the link below.
Everyone has food cravings at some point or another, but only a few are able to truly handle these intense cravings to maneuver past them. If you often find yourself giving into food cravings and aren’t making progress towards your healthy goals, it’s time that you put together a plan to conquer them once and for all.
Fortunately, cravings really don’t have to get the best of you as long as you have a plan to outsmart them. Let’s look at a few helpful ways that you can combat food cravings and not sabotage your healthy eating.
Eat Regularly
The very first tip to remember if you want to avoid food cravings is to make sure that you’re eating regularly throughout the day. Yes…. I am talking to all YOU, meal skippers! We need calories to survive, and cravings will always be higher when hunger is increasing. In addition, those who eat on a consistent basis are going to have more stable blood sugar levels and this factor alone will decrease food cravings.
Aim to eat every three to five hours (depending on your activity level and caloric needs) throughout the day since this will make sure you are providing a steady stream of nutrients that your body needs.
Eat High Quality Protein
Studies show higher protein diets lead people to naturally eat fewer total calories. The feeling of fullness and satisfaction that protein provides decreases appetite. Protein foods also tend to raise leptin (hormone that decreases hunger) and decrease ghrelin (hormone that stimulates hunger). Consuming protein also helps with insulin and blood sugar management. Ideally, eating protein at every meal is key, but if you need to prioritize one meal, choose breakfast. Studies show that waking up to a healthy protein, such as eggs, nuts, seeds, nut butters or a protein shake help people lose weight, reduce cravings, and burn calories.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Proximity to food influences how much of it you eat. If your will power is weak, keep healthy foods right where you can see them, and stash unhealthy ones in hard-to-reach places, like at the store. Like the rest of you I have food cravings too, but the temptation is so much worse when my food cravings are in arms reach. So if I actually have to leave the house or work to go buy my food cravings, the chances that will happen are so much less than whether or not I will eat the double stuffed Oreos that are stashed in my pantry.
Cheat Meals
Finally, the last thing you can do to help control your cravings is to plan some cheat meals. Some people really like cheat days vs. cheat meals, but you’ll feel better and be more successful with meeting your nutritional goals if you don’t over indulge all day long. Depending on your goals, most likely you will be able to include 2 cheat meals over a week’s time.
Honestly, I am not a big fan of the word “cheat,” I think it’s perfectly fine to occasionally indulge. The word “cheat” suggest food is either good or bad, and when guilt or shame is attached to a food it can destroy one’s motivation quickly. So don’t beat yourself up over enjoying some less nutritional food from time to time. If you eat clean 80% of the time, you are sure to meet your nutritional goals, and these times of indulgence can motivate you to get through the less-awesome meals, reinvigorate your training, and make your life happy.
So there you have it! Preparing to avoid cravings before they start will enable you to be successful with your goals and see the inches melt away.
For many parents, it would be much easier and simpler to forget about family dinners. Jobs, children, after-school activities all contribute to families being constantly on the go, thus feeling the need to eat on the run. But more and more parents are realizing the importance of shared family time at the dinner table. Often, this is the only time when all family members are all together in one place.
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University says that the more often children eat dinner with their parents, the less likely they are to smoke, drink, or use illicit drugs. The center compared teens who dined with families five or seven times a week with those who did so twice or less. Those who ate together more often were four times less likely to smoke, 2.5 times less likely to use marijuana, and half as likely to drink alcohol.
CASA reports that family dinners have a similar link to mental health. Adolescents and young adults who seek treatment for depression, anxiety, and other emotional problems are about half as likely as their peers to have regular family meals. Why? For one thing, mealtimes give children a chance to talk with parents about things that bother them. And the more we talk about our life issues, the less likely our issues will turn into mental health issues.
Children who dine with parents tend to eat better, too. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics says that children who join family dinners eat more fruit, vegetables, minerals, and vitamins. They also eat fewer saturated fats and snacks, and drink less soda making weight control easier. Unfortunately, despite the benefits to both body and soul, just 30% of families eat dinner together every night.
One way to reclaim your dinner time and limit the stress of planning, shopping, preparing, and cooking family meals is to purchase DIY meal kits or as I often call them, mail meals. To most people’s surprise, I dislike cooking. I know… I know… Dietitians are suppose to like cooking. Nah! That’s just a myth. I am human and struggling to keep up with life like the rest of you guys. However, I am a mom, and my kids would trade me in for another mom quickly if I suggest we consume smoothies, cold cereal, or peanut butter and jelly every night for dinner.
In the past, I wrote another blog comparing quite a few mail meal companies. Check it out if you’re interested in learning about more mail meal companies. For the rest of this blog, I want to focus on a new mail meal company, Meez Meals, that has recently come to the Kentucky area.
Meez Meals caught my attention because they have a diverse menu, claim to be super fast, and ridiculously easy. Plus, the meals are made from-scratch, healthy, customizable, and typically ready in 25-40 minutes. The most unique thing is Meez does ALL the prep work and doesn’t have a mandatory subscription. They are also a YELP 5-star reviewed Chicago company.
So I decided to put my money where my mouth is…. I ordered four meals: Italian Chicken Sausage Pot Pie, Hawaiian Quesadillas, Mexican Chicken Paella, and Steak Bi Bim Bap. Depending on what you order the cost ranges $9-15 per serving, but the more servings you order for each recipe, the lower the price-per-serving. You can order as many servings of a recipe as you like which isn’t always the case with other mail meal companies.
When I received my order, I was very impressed. Everything was clearly labeled, prepped, and ready to cook, and I received easy step-by-step instructions to complete the meal. If you need more help, there is also a dinner hotline you can call for tips. Meez Meals seriously goes out of their way to ensure the most challenged cooks will find cooking easy.
Overall, the food was delicious and the serving sizes were quite impressive. We had leftovers from all the meals except the quesadillas, and the chicken pot pie was the best pot pie I have eaten in my entire life. Whether you’re looking for southern home cooking, authentic Mexican, fresh Italian, scrumptious seafood, or something else family friendly, give Meez Meals a chance. They will NOT disappoint, and you will find it possible to reclaim family meal time again!
Lose weight. Improve your diet. Increase physical activity. Decrease sugar consumption. Increase calcium consumption. There’s a lot to keep track of in cultivating a healthy lifestyle. It takes daily vigilance, a little math, and a lot of record-keeping. But, as the slogan goes, “There’s an app for that.” In fact, there is more than one app for that, but two of the most popular ones in the U.S. for the iPhone are Lose It! and My Fitness Pal. Lets compare the two apps.
Lose It! and MyFitnessPal apps for iPhone both have a full web portal where users can log the same information they keep on their smartphones, as well as manage a few other things regarding your profile, goals, and so forth. As much as the website may come in handy for some—especially if you’re going to enter custom foods to the database—the apps offers a much more realistic way to track calories, because you theoretically always have your phone with you. The number of foods most people eat in a day can get out of hand quickly, so the best way to keep on top of logging is to do it several times a day. That’s why apps are the best medium for this job.
Lose It! App
While Lose It! is classified as a “healthcare and fitness” app, at its core it’s a calorie counter and exercise tracker. You use the app to record what you eat in a day, how much exercise you get, as well as your weight. If you choose to set a goal, such as lose a half a pound per week until a certain weight, Lose It! will help you figure out how many calories you should be consuming and burning in order to reach the target weight. From a Registered Dietitian standpoint, the estimated caloric needs are pretty accurate. In addition, I like that you can view your daily nutrients in a pie chart. A good goal is to shoot for 50% carbohydrate, 20% protein, and 30% fat consumption each day. This feature makes it easy to see what you need to eat more or less of to meet this goal.
Lose It! Food Database
Lose It! for iPhone does indeed help you log your calories burned and consumed while you’re on the go, but not easily as it could. The biggest disappointment was Lose It’s database of foods. The database lacks a lot of items that I (and surely other people) actually eat. Lose It! does offer users the ability to create a custom food in the database, so you can add anything that’s not there, but it can be time consuming. This won’t be a major problem for you if you tend to eat the same thing over and over because your food items will be stored under “My Foods.” In addition, Lose It! does have a convenient bar code scanner to assist with logging prepackaged foods.
Exercise Log
The exercise logging section of Lose It! is good. Options for activities are fairly comprehensive and include all the basics, such as a variety of sports and all the cardio equipment you’d find in a gym. Record having done an activity, and you’ll enter the amount of time spent doing it, as well as the intensity level when required . If you integrate Lose It! with Fit bit, an online fitness tracker that comes with a smart pedometer, Lose It! can more accurately offset your net calories for the day based on how much you’ve walked, run, and climbed (stairs).
Spellcheck
For those that can’t spell! The fact that there isn’t auto spellcheck can get disastrous. So if you type in more information to try and narrow down the results… the more you type, the greater the chance you’ve introduced a typo. One typo can kill the whole search. It’s a nuisance, and when you’re already cranky from trying to reform your diet, you really can’t make enemies with the app that’s supposed to be helping you.
Pros
More visual than some other calorie counter and exercise logging apps. Free. Integrates with other sites and services. Easy to enter the same meal or food items eaten more than once. Has a bar code scanner. Accurate in estimating caloric needs.
Cons
No spell check. Not the most extensive database of food. Requires diligent activity tracking for accurate intake recommendations. No metric option.
Bottom Line
The free iPhone app Lose It!, designed for counting calories and logging exercise, can help you lose weight, especially if you tend to eat name-brand American foods. But for avid home cooks and those with a more international diet, there’s a better app for you.
MyFitnessPal App
MyFitnessPal is also a calorie counter and exercise tracker. It is a mobile app and website that gives you a wealth of tools for tracking what and how much you eat, and how many calories you burn through activity. You use the app to record what you eat in a day, how much exercise you get, as well as your weight. From a Registered Dietitian standpoint, the estimated caloric needs are a little high. Not a lot…but higher than I would recommend for weight loss needs. It also offers a lovely pie chart which allows you to view your macronutrients (carbs, protein, & fat) in percentages for the day.
MyFitnessPal Database
You don’t need to know how many calories are in each food you eat. MyFitnessPal has a database of over 3 million food items, including individual foods, meals at chain restaurants, and branded foods from your grocery store. Good luck trying to stump the database!
Sometimes the massive database can be a bit overwhelming. Searching for food items often reveals dozens of choices, some with conflicting information. MyFitnessPal allows users to add their own information to the database which results in an abundance of information, not all of it correct. Use your best judgment in choosing which option to enter into your diary.
Exercise Log
When it comes to logging exercise, MyFitnessPal scores. There are loads of different exercises to choose from, from running, to skipping. All you have to do is log the amount of time you spent doing the activity or, if you used gym equipment, you can log the amount of calories the gym equipment told you that you’d burnt. In addition, MyFitnessPal can sync with many additional apps and devices to track your calories burned accurately.
Spellcheck
It has spellcheck. Enough said.
Pros
Enormous database of foods and drinks. Easy to log food, meals, and recipes. Works with a long list of other apps and fitness-tracking devices. Free. Has spellcheck.
Cons
Estimated caloric needs are a little high based on my Registered Dietitian expertise. Requires diligent activity tracking for accurate intake recommendations. Any users can add their own information to the database.
Bottom Line
MyFitnessPal is one of the best calorie counter app for the iPhone. A simple design, excellent interface, enormous database of food, and huge network of supported apps and devices makes it hard to beat.
My Conclusion
Of the two apps, if I had to choose between the two, I have to give the nod to MyFitnessPal, and the reason is the database.
MyFitnessPal did a better job picking up foods I like to eat on the go. For instance, I love Qdoba. When I wanted to add “naked burrito with chicken and guacamole” from Qdoba into MyFitnessPal it was in the database — but nowhere to be found on Lose It. But either way, if you start typing in what you eat in MyFitnessPal or Lose It!, you could end up carrying around less weight in 2015. And we would all love that, right?
Water is your body’s principal chemical component and makes up about 60 percent of your body weight. Every system in your body depends on water. For example, water flushes toxins out of vital organs, carries nutrients to your cells and provides a moist environment for ear, nose and throat tissues.
Everyone has heard the advice, “Drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day.” That’s about 1.9 liters, which isn’t that different from the Institute of Medicine recommendations. Although the “8 by 8” rule isn’t supported by hard evidence, it remains popular because it’s easy to remember.
So how much fluid does the average, healthy adult living need? The Institute of Medicine determined that an adequate intake (AI) for men is roughly 3 liters (about 13 cups) of total beverages a day. The AI for women is 2.2 liters (about 9 cups) of total beverages a day.
Go drink some water!
Sugar and inflammation aren’t just related, they are married. In Biblical terms God refers to marriage in Mark 10:8 proclaiming “Two Shall Become One.” Meaning the husband and wife are no longer two entities but one entity. They no longer function individually but together. Sugar and inflammation work in the same manner; except their marriage is highly dysfunctional.
Let’s start with inflammation.
Inflammation is a key part of the immune response and as we now hear more and more, it’s the root cause of all disease. Diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, autoimmune disorders, and cancer are linked back to chronic and invisible inflammation that lies just below the body’s pain threshold. But inflammation is also to blame for these common health challenges: body aches and pains, congestion, irregular elimination, indigestion, skin outbreaks, frequent infections, advanced aging, arthritis, weight gain, and weight loss resistance.
That’s stuff that’s effecting just about all of us!
Now let’s talk about sugar.
By sugar I mean table sugar, brown sugar, raw sugar, honey (even raw), maple syrup, corn sweetener, dextrose, glucose, fructose, and any other word that ends in an “ose”, barley malt, rice syrup, liquid cane sugar, concentrated fruit juice and others. Don’t be fooled by the name organic when it applies to sugar either. Sugar is sugar, organic or not.
When we consume sugar over and over, we weaken our body tissues, our white blood cells, and our immune system. When our body tissues and immune system are weak, we can not fend off foreign invaders. Not only are we now susceptible to degenerative diseases but also infectious diseases. And when the illnesses and/or injuries start to set in….and they eventually will….sugar and inflammation go straight from dating to the altar. And the marriage is sealed with a big inflammatory state kiss.
The Good News is inflammation can separate from sugar and finalize the divorce with some focus, determination, and the right information. And I feel pretty safe saying God doesn’t hate this divorce.
Strategies to Calm Inflammation
A growing body of evidence links particular foods and eating patterns with lower levels of inflammatory biomarkers. Both epidemiological studies and intervention trials support a link between diet and a reduced risk of many chronic diseases, and experts believe that the diet-inflammation connection might be one explanation. Diets high in refined starches, sugars, saturated fats, and trans fats and low in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and omega-3 fatty acids appear to turn on the inflammatory response. But a diet rich in whole foods, including healthful carbohydrates and fat and protein sources, along with regular exercise and not smoking, seems to cool down inflammation.
If you are really struggling with inflammation, you can even take it one step further and do a 2 week “anti-inflammatory detox diet.” This not only involves avoiding the sugars I mentioned above, but also avoiding the No Food List below to accelerate your healing/break up with sugar.
No Food List
Grains, including oatmeal, rice, quinoa, and corn
Dairy, including butter
Beans/Legumes, which includes hummus (made from garbanzo beans, chick peas)
Peanuts (which are technically legumes)
Potatoes (white, red, yellow)
Alcohol
Processed food
Added sugars, including honey, agave syrup, maple syrup
Artificial ANYTHING, sweeteners, flavors, colors, dyes
Dietitian Blogger 