A Balance of Vegetables and Common Sense

Friday; the day of the week following Thursday falling before Saturday. (I love literal definitions of words.) On Thursday I clean, on Friday I plan, on the weekend I play... Today, sitting in a tidy living room, I planned the next seven days of food.  Here's what is on our menu:

Chicken Caesar Wraps with Grapes.     
Hamburgers and Dogs with Pasta Salad
Basil Chicken over Rice with Broccoli 
Ham with Roast Potatoes, Asparagus and Burst Tomatoes
Fried Chicken with Corn, Peas, Slaw and Baked Beans
Beef Roast and Tomatoes with Carrots over Rice
Corn Chowder with Crisp Romaine Green Leafy Salad

The kids entertained me this morning with their requests and I listened to every word.  "Fried Chicken?  Sure, but you have to choose something healthy to go with it."
"Baked Beans?  Yes, but I am going to make them; we aren't eating them from a tin can."
"Corn Chowder?  Okay, but choose a veggie to eat along side so it's not so heavy," to which I got the reply, "How about we use up the caesar salad from the wraps?"  Smart kids.  Each menu selection was balanced with vegetables and common sense; a delicious combination.

There's a theory out there that eating food should be an enjoyable experience.  I love that theory~

Eat real food, drink plenty of water, give your vitamins their vitamins and, as always, remember to wash your hands, especially after you eat fried chicken. ;)

Break-Up with Sugar Series:

Let's wrap this thing up, shall we?  This break-up has taken long enough!

Remember that 'significant other' from yesteryear?  The one who mistreated you and misunderstood your desires? Who ignored your needs and took advantage of your gifts?  The one who seduced you with momentary glimpses of the possibility of acceptance, love, interest and investment?  Who felt so good and so frustratingly horrid to love?  The forbidden lover from the other side of the tracks who had very few good intentions and countless negative side-effects?  That, dear reader, is sugar.

When sugar is consumed, the brain lights up.  Dopamine is released on the brain and 'love' is felt.  Joy.  Elation.  Relaxation.  At times, euphoria is experienced.  Sugar is a substance the brain becomes addicted to and dependent on in order to feel good or at ease.  There is a stress cycle connected to many or most addictive behaviors that is best derailed by abruptly changing course, taking action, and embracing change.  Dr. Mercola provides dozens of articles on sugar and its side-effects, but if information really derailed addictive behaviors, we wouldn't be having this conversation.  

So tactics have to be deployed.  When I broke ties with the forbidden lover from the other side of the tracks, I burned all the of the old photographs, discard the letters, deleted his phone number, rearranged the furniture, bought new sheets and underthings, and spent more time with friends.  Crowding sugar out of the diet takes just as many tactics, drastic or otherwise.  

What are this tactics?  We have already discussed a few:

• Be aware of how much sugar you are eating; set yourself up for 24 grams of added sugar or less (I advise my clients and kids to aim for 12 or less).
• Replace processed foods with their real counterparts: fruit snacks with fruit; mac'n cheese with cheese and good quality pasta; fruit juice with fruit infused water; soda with sparkling water; table sugar with raw honey.
• Choose naturally sweet foods to satisfy cravings; fruit, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, hummus, bell peppers and dark chocolate are good places to start.
• Rearrange the pantry.  Read labels, throw out expired goods, donate unwanted items, and move the healthiest options front and center.  
• Change behaviors to battle cravings.  Nothing changes if nothing changes.

Breaking up with sugar is an individual choice and can be a cold turkey effort or a gradual, surgical process.  While you decide what action steps you can take to crowd sugar out, grab a plate of sweet, delicious, naturally occurring food.  Drink water.  Seek vitamins.  Wash your hands of adhering to someone else's diet and aim for what works for you.  Just make sure you aren't working for sugar.

Anna~

If you would like more information on how to find your perfect diet, schedule a consultation with me today.  www.nutritionalcadence.com

Break-Up With Sugar Series:

"If you are constantly receiving deliveries, you cannot relax, you cannot disassemble stored goods, and you cannot access the furniture." me 

A friend of mine recently asked me about the relationship between cholesterol and diet. She is thoughtful and contemplative about taking a Lipitor like drug to reduce elevated cholesterol. I offered a handful of advice including reading labels, avoiding dried fruit, minimizing animal based foods and watching sugar intake. She admitted her dislike toward reading food labels and examining ingredients for reasons we didn't discuss. I then simplified things: "Buy and eat foods without labels."

When reducing sugar, just like reducing cholesterol, eliminating foods with labels is quite possibly a most effective practice. Instead of a boring science lesson, imagine you've moved. On the day the truck arrives with all of your belongings, multiple people scurry in and out of the truck and deliver goods to different rooms of your house. There is a rush to unpack the kitchen and the coffee maker, a scramble to find the kids underwear and favorite stuffed animals, and a last hoorah at the end of the day to make the beds with at least a fitted sheet if the flat can't be found. 

Back in context, the moving truck is your meal, the coffee maker, sheets and underwear are the sugars, and the rush, scurry, and scramble is your insulin response. Sugar, especially refined, easily accessed, high glycemic load sugar, requires a long and fast insulin response from your pancreas. Simplified, insulin moves fuel, sugar and nutrients to the cells of your body for storage or for consumption during and after meals. 

Only when insulin is turned off and inactive within the body, can other hormones access stored sugars and fats for fuel ~or~ Only when the moving truck pulls away and you are sure all of your belongings are back in your possession can you relax and slowly disassemble the boxes and access the furniture. The problem with sugar is this: If you are constantly receiving deliveries, you cannot relax, you cannot disassemble stored goods, and you cannot access the furniture. 

Real foods offer a diverse amount of sugar, fat, carbs, nutrients and protein in tasty, recognizable packages. Chips, breakfast cereal, soda, Aunt Jemima, Hamburger Helper and Skippy aren't real foods. Instead choose roast sweet potatoes, eggs, water, maple syrup, grass fed beef tips and peanuts for all of the flavor, a fraction of the sugar and thrice the benefits. While you're at it, make sure to give your vitamins their vitamins, wash your hands and think of this:

“Some of the largest companies are now using brain scans to study how we react neurologically to certain foods, especially to sugar. They've discovered that the brain lights up for sugar the same way it does for cocaine.” ― Michael Moss


Anna~

Throw Back Thursday: Sweet Information

Sweet Information from August 22, 2013

My sister tried a few recipes and suggestions from this week's posts and the results were not 100% satisfactory.  To be completely truthful, I don't eat yogurt.  I love to smear it on my face to eat away dead skin and moisturize like none other, but to eat?  My taste buds are not of the yogurt loving variety. So, when I suggested eating plain, unsweetened yogurt and adding real fruit, my sister took my advice (for on that matter I can't take my own).  "It was very bitter," she reported.  "I think next time I will add some honey."

Honey.  Other than a sweet, sweet flavor, did you know that honey has benefits? (If you saw The Rachael Ray Show yesterday, you do.)  Natural news sums it up beautifully:

"Raw honey has anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal properties. It promotes body and digestive health, is a powerful antioxidant, strengthens the immune system, eliminates allergies, and is an excellent remedy for skin wounds and all types of infections. Raw honey's benefits don't stop there. Raw honey can also stabilize blood pressure, balance sugar levels, relieve pain, calm nerves, and it has been used to treat ulcers. Raw honey is also an expectorant and anti-inflammatory and has been known to effectively treat respiratory conditions such as bronchitis and asthma.

Raw honey is an alkaline-forming food that contains natural vitamins, enzymes, powerful antioxidants and other important natural nutrients. These are the very nutrients that are destroyed during the heating and pasteurization process. In fact, pasteurized honey is equivalent to and just as unhealthy as eating refined sugar."  (Learn more at Natural News.) 

Not all honey on the shelves is the same.  Look at the bear in your pantry for words like 'unprocessed', 'raw', 'unfiltered', 'natural' and 'unheated'.  Not there?  The shelves of your supermarket will have the refined and raw varieties; next time you shop, take a look.  You'll find raw honey from select flowers and bouquets.  Then, when you add fruit to plain yogurt and it's still a bit bitter you can drizzle in the benefits of honey!  Isn't that sweet?

Enjoy real food. Drink plenty of water.  Give your vitamins their vitamins and, as always, remember to wash your hands.

Anna~

Break-Up With Sugar Series:

It's not the Sugar we Battle - It's the Cravings!

Sugar.  The plain simple truth is this: the human body needs and runs on sugar.  We have already decided, along with the good advice of the AHA, that women should consume 25 grams, men 37, or less on a daily basis. One soda, a fruit juice box, one thick and creamy yogurt, one fudge pop tart or a single serving of Mott's applesauce rings the bell.  Because that much sugar resides in such small packages, and because the human body runs on sugar, it takes a conscious effort to break out of the sugar cube fortress.

Sugar cravings come from many places.  Mental anguish.  Physical exhaustion.  Emotional stress.  Sleep deprivation.  Joy.  Routine.  Convenience.  Ancient History.  There are no known sweet foods on the planet that are poisonous, which means we, as a species, evolved with a common thread; the proverbial sweet tooth.  Craving something sweet is inherent, but craving Mountain Dew for breakfast and seeking an afternoon sugar buzz is something else.

You and I both know how to reduce our sugar intake; simple math on that one.  The trouble comes in when we have to battle our sugar cravings.  I rely on the saying, 'nothing changes if nothing changes'. If you buy the same treats and place them in the same cabinets; if you purchase the same sugary drinks and fill the same shelves in the fridge; if you pattern your day with the same old sugar dependent rhythm, your sugar cravings will not change.  Cravings can only be undone when something changes or something new is introduced.  Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes.

Today you can change one thing.  You can replace one soda with an herbal tea or lemon water.  You can go for a brisk walk to invigorate your body to replace the afternoon candy bar.  You can replace one treat for a banana.  Instead of saying 'can't have,' replace those words with 'why do I want?'  Have a conversation with yourself to decide what is worth your 25 grams in sugar and what is not!

The best way to remove added sugar from your diet is to eat foods without labels.  Real foods not only offer the blood sugar our bodies so readily require (especially us busy moms and military wives), but they provide nourishment as well.  You can't find nourishment in a sugar cube.

You know what to do.

Anna~

'Break-Up with Sugar' Series:

First Thing's First:  How Much Sugar Are You Eating?

Today, a hot lunch served in the lunchroom at my school, a lunch lunch containing only cold food items, ironically enough, contained 66 grams of sugar.  Sixty-Six.  A single strawberry Dannon yogurt, a 1% milk fat string-cheese stick, a single serving bowl of Total Raisin Bran with a cup (8 oz) of 1% White or Nonfat Chocolate milk, and Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Giant Grahams for dessert. Sixty-Six grams of sugar for lunch.

How much sugar should you be eating?  The answer, of course, depends.  There are natural sugars, like those found in bananas, honey and milk, and there are added sugars, like those found in Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Giant Grahams.  Real food deserves consideration for balancing sugar intake on the whole, but processed foods are the real culprit when it comes to a diet too sweet to be true.


"The maximum amount of added sugars you should eat in a day are: Men: 150 calories per day (37.5 grams or 9 teaspoons). Women: 100 calories per day (25 grams or 6 teaspoons)." Dr. Oz, CNN, AHA, Men's Health, Woman's Day...  you name it, they all refer to the American Heart Association's recommendation.  Surpassing the recommended sugar intake limit is awfully easy to do.

Where is added sugar found?  Everywhere.  The spoonful in your coffee, the syrup on your pancakes, the popsicles in your freezer, the peanut butter in your pantry, and in every other processed food package marketed with cheap prices and coupons to boot.  Look on the label or for words that end in 'ose'.

While you are raiding your pantry to add up your sugar intake for the day, grab an apple.  Drink some water or herbal tea.  Eat foods that give your vitamins their vitamins.  Wash your hands of marketed, mass produced, pre-packaged food stuffs and get back to what nature knows best.

Tomorrow, the break-up process begins!

Throwback Thursday: Is Your Morning a Good Place to Start?

From October 19, 2013:

We all have a wake-up routine.  Some hit the alarm and optimistically hop in the shower.  Some take a few moments in bed, then move to the coffee machine for motivation.  Others move from the mattress to meditation or prayer to begin their day with enlightenment and joy.  There are also those that wake with yesterday's burdens and haul them around with sadness and disdain as they move from task to task.  Then, there are those that treat each morning anew with no rigid pattern or playbook, embracing whatever the day has to offer.  No matter your routine, let's all take a look to see what is working and what isn't~

Sleep.  The morning, whether we realize it or not, should begin with sleep.  Typical adults hit the sheets between 10 and 11 pm and wake between 5 and 6 am.  Sleep starts when you close your eyes and deepens over the hours of slumber.  Relaxation turns to light sleep, then deep sleep, then REM sleep with stages of transition between.  If sleep is interrupted (children, stress, sadness, aches, pains) or inhibited (alcohol or caffeine, light or noise) then deep sleep and REM cannot be reached leaving your body sleep deprived and tired.  If your alarm clock has to sound several times to kick you out of bed your 'sleep' may not be working. 

Water.  The average male should consume nearly 3 liters of water daily; women should exceed 2 liters.  Too little water causes a myriad of problems, and, most times, these problems aren't consciously associated with dehydration.  Obvious dehydration symptoms are headaches, dry, cracked lips, and limp skin.  Sleepiness, moodiness, and fogginess are also direct symptoms of dehydration.  More complex symptoms include thickened blood resulting in higher blood pressure, sluggish digestion (constipation, lack of hunger, cramps), muscle soreness and stress.  We treat symptoms individually with corresponding medications or applications when most can be remedied with water.  Instead of applying lotion to your skin, caffeine to your catatonic, and Motrin to your muscles, start your morning with water and continue the trend all day long.  Tomorrow you may notice your 'morning' working better.

Nutrition.  A doughnut, no matter how you slice it, is not nutritious.  So many breakfast foods are sugar slathered and seductive, but you, with brains in your head, know that though the body runs on 'sugar', it can not be nourished by it.  Bread, bagels, doughnuts, muffins, pastries, rolls, scones, potatoes, pancakes and waffles, syrup included, are all recognized by the body as sugar.  Refined, simple, straight to the bloodstream sugar.  What else is there?  Eggs.  Vegetables.  Fruit.  Whole grains.  Dairy.  That doesn't mean you should grab a V8 and a Danimals yogurt, for many 'healthy' concoctions are loaded with added sugar, added salt and added artificial ingredients.  It does mean vegetable juice and minimally processed dairy foods, whole fruits, grains, nuts, seeds, and protein are better choices than doughnuts.  Nourish your body with nutrition and it will work and sleep and think well!

Too many changes?  Can't give up the doughnut?  Don't have any more hours to dedicate to sleep?  Start with drinking water.  Pour a pitcher equalling a liter of water and leave it on your counter or desk.  Make sure your glass is always half full until it is gone!  (Then repeat!)  When hunger comes, choose real, delicious, whole foods.  Don't be afraid to give your vitamins their vitamins.  And, before you go to sleep, wash your hands of all the mistakes and regrets so that your morning is good place to start!

Anna~