Four months ago I decided to introduce meat
into my diet again after 13 years of being a vegetarian and to cut most carbs
and fruit out of my diet. I think a can feel a bit of Tim Noakse’s pain, people
do question you when you make a 180ยบ turn in your beliefs
and preachings.
Yes, I admit I initially did it because I
wanted to find out what the whole Banting hype is all about but it opened my
eyes to so many other issues and I am truly grateful for this.
Firstly, having sufficient protein in my
diet changed the way I look at food. I don’t have to snack 2 to 3 times a day
any more. I don’t think about food 24/7 any more because I am not constantly
hungry any more. For the first time I honestly enjoying eating food! I eat less
of but more delicious food! In the past I had to keep a strict training regime
to keep my weight down. This past winter I have only been training twice a
week, I’ve been eating wonderful food (and drinking a couple of glasses of wine
with it every now and then!) and my weight is constant – a huge thing for me.
When I read the Real Meal Revolution (Tim
Noakes) I really started to look at carbs differently. I’ve always thought of
carbs as bread, rice, pasta, potato’s, pizza and cereals. I knew whole grain
bread was better than white bread, same with rice and pasta. Butter is bad,
margarine with low cholesterol is better, eat lots of fruit and veggies and
don’t use full cream milk or eat anything but fat free yoghurt. Sugar to me has
always been very straight forward; anything that is wrapped in colourful paper
and stared at me while I’m in the line to pay is packed with sugar; honey is
okay but white/brown sugar is a no-no. Fruit juice and soda’s are poison. But I
realised I had it all wrong!
Do you have any idea how many food items
have sugar in them? I must rather ask what food items don’t contain sugar! The
list will be much shorter. Before I go there let’s look at sugar:
When sugar hits our tongue, the sweet taste
receptors send messages to the brain that activate the brain’s reward system
and Dopamine is released. Dopamine causes you to experience that warm, fuzzy
feeling. The brain gets addicted to that and the body builds up a sugar
tolerance which means you need more sugar to get the same effect.
So why then is it so difficult to cut sugar
out of our daily lives? Because anything with a label contains sugar, anything
that is low fat or fat free has sugar in it so it can taste like something.
Cereals contain sugar. And the most important thing: carbs = sugar,
fruit=sugar, some veggies=sugar.
What this means is that we try to be
“healthy”, we still keep adding sugar to our diet and our bodies only need a
small amount of carbs/sugar for energy and the rest changes to fat.
So where can we get our energy from?
Protein!
Our bodies are made
up largely of protein – the skin, muscles, organs, immune (warrior) cells,
nails, hair, brain, base of bones. Only when protein is supplied can each
cell function normally and keep itself in constant repair. With adequate
protein intake, energy is readily produced and maintained. And you don’t need
to do protein overload 80 – 90 grams a day depending on your weight will do the
trick. And when you have enough protein you feel full and you don’t feel like
eating carbs all the time. But you need to get rid of the sugar in
your body first and then try and keep it that way and that is tricky…
I came to realise that sugar has the same
effect on the brain as nicotine and we should treat it as an addiction. New
research is showing sugar and high carb foods are the cause of more than just
obesity and diabetes. How will your shopping habits change if high sugar, high
carb foods have warning labels similar to those on cigarettes packets? “WARNING:
SUGAR CAUSES CANCER” or “WARNING: HIGH CARBS CAUSE ALZHEIMER’S”
I know it may sound a bit far fetched but
what if it is true?
In the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s nobody knew
nicotine was so dangerous and even today many smokers think nothing will happen
to them. Is sugar addiction heading in the same direction as nicotine
addiction?
It is not
easy to cut sugar and carbs out of your diet completely. It takes planning and a
bit of effort, you need to be creative but it can be great fun. I bake my own
carb free bread every week and it is great to have egg on toast again without
feeling guilty. I make cauliflower rice and mash and eat a generous portion
without the guilt and that is a very sweet thing!
PS: Have a look at this very interesting video, this might
just be the change of mind you need: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lEXBxijQREo
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