Don't Believe in the Hype - Fake fats & sugars do NOT promote weight loss!
Your cells are ALIVE. They are the smallest part of you that is considered living. If you think about it, cells collectively form living tissue, living tissues form organs, organs form systems (such as muscular, skeletal, respiratory etc…) and these systems collectively form YOU!
So just like you, cells get hungry and require sustenance, which is why you feel the need to eat from time to time. What you are doing is actually feeding your cells. So everything that happens to your body or becomes part of your body, is a direct consequence of how (or if) your cells can use and process the food that you provide for it.
We’ve been waivered by TV and advertising in to thinking that if we fancy a fizzy drink, then the diet variety is a healthier and more preferable option...
But we rarely stop to consider how it is possible to have something that tastes so sweet and yet has practically no calorific content. The likelihood of birds and insects seizing to drink nectar, in exchange for artificial sweeteners, in order to maintain a svelte physique, is minimal to none. By consuming artificial, processed or manufactured foods to replace ingredients that are ordinarily found in nature, we run the risk of allowing these unknown chemicals to pollute our cells and in turn our whole bodies.
One of the things that the body can do to stop these unusable toxins from causing destruction, is to lock them away in fat cells. Fat can be used as a protective barrier, surrounding the toxin so as to prevent it from causing harm to the rest of the body (a bit like hoarding away boxes of junk and clutter in the attic). You may think that all waste products are eliminated from the body through regular bowel movement, but waste is only accountable for if it is able to be metabolised or processed by the body and identified as unwanted and suitable for excretion. Anything else that falls outside of this jurisdiction is likely to either be stored or worse still, allowed to enter and attack our cells!
So here are my three little gems to reduce the threat from those nasty little blighters…
If you’re going to eat ‘unhealthily’, do it properly!
This may come as a shock to hear (or rather read), but you are actually better off drinking original, high sugar fizzy drink as opposed to their sugar free counterparts. Run of the mill, granulated cane sugar (or sucrose as it is also known) is far more recognisable to the body then a low calorie, sugar free substitute like aspartame for example, and is therefore much easier to assimilate and burn off as energy.
Butter is much healthier for you than margarine. Margarine has a similar chemical make-up to plastic!! (An article on ‘butter vs marge’ will be coming your way in the forthcoming weeks.) Natural sugars and fats can be melted off of the body through exercise, rather than build up and reek havoc on your body. Why seek something that pretends to be creamy or sweet when fats and sugars already exist to fill the void?
Eat food that is as close to nature as possible: Why buy banana milkshake when you can bung a real banana and some natural yoghurt in a blender (and yes, even add a spoonful of sugar if you really wish to)? Sure it takes a bit more energy to combine the ingredients yourself, but you will get a healthy, satisfying boost that your body will truly enjoy and genuinely benefit from, plus you’ll always know exactly what went in to the recipe. To coin a classic soul song of the 60’s… ‘Ain’t nothing like the real thing baby!’
The bigger the list, the bigger the risk
The next time you’re in the supermarket or food store, if you do not do this already, take a look on the back of the packaging at the ingredients. If it lists over 8 ingredients (and especially if you find it hard to pronounce one or more of those ingredients properly) then there is a good chance that the product is too over processed and may be better off avoided. If you are creating your own homemade recipe from scratch, then by all means, add as many ingredients as you like. But if it was mass produced in a factory and shipped halfway around the globe, rather than by your fair hand in your kitchen, it’s most probably questionable.
To reduce the amount of artificial chemicals consumed is to reduce the fat deposits needed in the body to store them! You may actually see the lbs melt off as you pursue a diet that is closer to nature.
Now I’m not saying that we should all go out there in an attempt to guzzle as much sugar and fat as we can get our hands on, everything in moderation is still the best option. Instead, I suggest that whatever choices you about food, are informed choices. Always be reminded that - and I’m about go all hippy-chic on you for a moment – every naturally occurring element, molecule, cell and compound is born of the same mother… Mother Earth! That includes anyone who is reading this now!
Shelley Winford
Personal Trainer and Fitness Instructor
