The big fat deception!

If I were to pick two words in our vocabulary that have confused and added more to the obesity epidemic then any phrase in our country, it would be “Fat Free.” When we are trying to lose body fat and we see a food item that looks delicious with the marketing label staring back at us with those words FAT FREE, it makes us feel like we’re staying on track with our weight loss commitments and goals. These foods are convenient but work directly against what we’re trying to do.

For example, if we were to eat an energy bar with 200 calories it would cause an insulin spike, leading to additional fat storage (unless we’re active after eating it and doing something to burn it off). If we would take in that same amount of calories in organic butter, it would have an insulin blunting effect, sustained energy (from the fat) over a longer period of time and longer lasting satiety. Remember: insulin spikes will in turn cause false hunger signals later even though you have plenty of food in your system.

The problem with these processed ingredients that make these food and drink items taste good, (such as sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners) is that they cause our body to have anything from sugar spikes to neurotoxic inflammatory responses that in turn cause us to store fat. Keep in mind the above listed items are put into foods NOT for your health but rather to keep you returning to a deceptive food or drink product that is working against your health and your fitness goals!

Most processed snack foods (diet snacks included) are loaded with these things, this is how they keep their diet items from tasting like cardboard. The key in avoiding these items is to select foods for your diet and snacks that have very few ingredients in them. 

Here is what happens with foods and drinks that have added sugar and high fructose corn syrup: when the levels of sugar spike beyond our current energy needs, our body will simply store it for later use, either in our liver or fat cells.

However with artificial sweeteners such as (Sweet n Low, Equal, Splenda), the effect is a little different and may be an indirect cause of weight gain but is a negative effect all the same on our weight loss efforts; they have a bad effect on our thyroid, and this is the gland that helps regulate our metabolism. These artificial sweeteners are also neurotoxic causing an inflammatory response from our body, which will cause us to release cortisol, and cortisol is THE stress hormone that causes us to retain belly fat!

Keeping it simple works best. Only eat or drink sweets before or right after long or intense periods of activity, avoid food or drink products with artificial sweeteners or high fructose corn syrup. 

Most times fat is not the problem. An overabundance of starches and or sugars in our diet is the real culprit. However when high fat foods are consumed in combination with sugary foods or drinks, the fat can be a problem because of the spike in insulin due to the sugar intake.

When we learn what real food and drink is, we can spot the foods that are wasting our time in our health and fitness efforts and when we truly visualize how much these foods and beverages are working against our efforts, they will not taste or look so good!