The New Year Sugar Resolution
Beginning at Halloween it seems the holidays are a time of a continuous stream of sugary treats and family favorite baked goods. Traditional recipes, holiday cookies and mugs of steaming cocoa make up a huge part of the joy of the season. The New Year is a great time to swap out some of the excess sugar and encourage healthier habits, without swinging the pendulum towards extreme deprivation! Many of you may be contemplating your New Year’s resolution to get back into shape after the holidays and it may possibly involve a grueling gym workout regime and calorie restricted low fat diet. Most will start out this plan with enthusiasm, only to fall short and carry the holiday pounds into spring because this type of diet, quite simply, leaves you unsatisfied and downright hungry!
The main culprit; SUGAR!
by Carol Green on December 20, 2013 in Carol Green, Family Nutrition
The reason many of these diets fail is simply our addiction, as a nation, to sugar. It has been proven to be chemically addictive, releasing opioids and dopamine in the brain, which means when you try and stay off the sugar, withdrawal symptoms, craving and binge eating can result. Excess sugar can have a detrimental effect on the whole family, especially children, including obesity, hyperactivity, malnutrition and heightened symptoms of ADHD, resulting in aggressive and destructive behavior.
Malnutrition?
Children especially can be overweight, or even obese, as foods high in refined carbohydrates provide empty calories and are very often devoid of nutrients. So what’s the answer? I recommend making small changes which, collectively over time, become new healthy habits. Taking on a healthy lifestyle as a family is bound to yield more positive results than trying to follow a healthier meal plan on your own.
Breaking the Sugar Habit.
Carbohydrates are ‘paper’ food, meaning they turn to glucose immediately, spiking blood sugar and burning up very quickly. This leads to a rapid drop in blood sugar and an energy crash. Many have experienced driving a “sugared-up” child home from a birthday party, only to see that sugar crash happen in the form of a behavior meltdown. Perhaps you’ve experienced it yourself when you’ve eaten a high carb sandwich for lunch, only to reach for an energy drink to get you through the afternoon.
Healthy carbs.
When referring to ‘carbs’, the assumption is the obvious like bread, pasta or rice, however fruits and vegetables are also carbohydrates. Our bodies rely on carbohydrates for quick energy production, they are the preferred food of the brain and they are necessary as part of a healthy diet. The key is in choosing unrefined carbohydrates in a whole food form with plenty of fruits and vegetables.
The keys to success.
The first key to breaking the sugar craving is in replacing the refined carbohydrates in the diet with unrefined versions. This means steel cut or rolled oats over instant oats, or whole brown rice over white rice. The processing strips away the fiber and many nutrients resulting in a food with a much higher impact on blood sugar. Take a look at the food labels below for Oats, the steel cut version has 32g of carbohydrates vs 27g in the instant version. The real problem comes with the added sugars in the instant product, 11g vs 1g in the steel cut version!
Steel Cut oats
Instant oats
Slow energy.
The second key is in providing the body with ‘log’ food, slow burning, good healthy fats and proteins, which will give sustained and lasting energy. Often the assumption is that low fat is healthier, while in fact the right fats are very healthy. They provide a host of health benefits, such as allowing fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K to be absorbed. They are anti-inflammatory, provide slow, sustained energy and, of course, make food taste great!
The plan
My goal is to help you put it all together. We have assembled a three day family meal plan, complete with recipes and a shopping list. Start by swapping out processed foods for real, made at home foods. Every change made adds up to good health!