Carbohydrates (continued)

When our body can’t process all the carbohydrates it has consumed, it turns it into stored fat. Our hypothalamus When our body can’t process all cannot detect fructose. as you want and your brain will never receive a signal to say the body has had enough food to eat (like it does with fat, proteins and complex carbohydrates).

This means you can gorge on these foods and never feel full. Most low-fat products contain fructose. And even This means you can gorge on these foods and never feel full some carbohydrates like bread, pasta and grains are made up of some fructose.

Sources of complex carbohydrates include:

Foods that have high amounts of fructose in it are:

Just like you, I was taught the more fruit the better.  But now , at most I would have handful of berries a day in a smoothie.

My advice is to just start reading the labels of packaged foods and get an idea of how much sugar you are putting in your body with every serving.  This way you can make educated decisions with regards to what foods you are putting in your body.

Diet Soda

I drank a lot of Diet Coke for a long time so I am not preaching here and saying don’t drink it.  However, I have a rule now, and that is, “If I can’t spell the ingredients of my food and drinks then it’s not going in my body. ” Simple, right?

Artificial sweeteners used in drinks like Diet Coke are linked to chronic disease, and they actually make you gain weight.  One study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that drinking diet drinks increases the risk of diabetes.  There are plenty of studies that you can review that will also show you that artificial sweeteners increase sugar cravings, the risk of cancer and can actually make you store fat and gain weight due to the possibility of your insulin levels increasing.

I also believe that because of the chemicals in diet soda, your body will hang onto fat in order to protect your organs from the harmful chemicals.

Alternative options to diet soda are sparkling water with lemon, lime or cucumber.

There are so many books you can purchase that will go into further detail as to what these energy sources do for our bodies but my recommendation is to just figure out how your body reacts to certain foods and figure out which foods it wants and doesn’t want.  After years of starving my body of fats, I now have a diet that consists of a lot of fats, like avocados, eggs, cheese, meats (white and red, plus fish) and Greek yogurt.  I know if I eat fat my body works better and I look better.  I’ve also discovered my body doesn’t like sugar.  Now, I’m not saying I no longer eat sugar, because I do, but now, I know that when I consume a lot of sugar, my body reacts in a negative way and I begin to feel sick.  Sugar makes me tired, sick and I look older.  While I am not saying avoid sugar all together, I do want you to be aware of what it does to your health and also understand that your body doesn’t register it when you are eating it.

For me, eating sugar doesn’t represent self-love.  When my body is hungry and needs to eat it wants fats and proteins.  When I am emotional and struggling to deal with my emotions, then I want sugar.