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Today’s average American consumes 152 pounds of sugar-based sweeteners and 56 gallons of soda each year, and this statistic even includes those who follow healthy diet plans.

To make matters worse, the rate of increase of soda consumption is so high that we consume 70% more than 30 years ago.

Do you find these numbers staggering or not surprising because more people are obese rather than following healthy weight loss tips and diet plans?

Let’s try an experiment of our own.

Figure out how many grams of sugar you eat and drink for a total of 3 days.  Multiply this number by 122 and it will result in the grams of sugar you consume in a year.  Now convert that amount into cups and leave a comment telling us how many cups of sugar are included in your diet plans each year.

It is if the fiber is Glucomannan.  Glucomannan is an extract from the Konjac plant and can act as a weight loss aid to your healthy eating plans.  It is a carb free fiber that can be consumed before meals with water.  It will absorb the liquid and expand in your stomach, which reduces hunger and can promote feelings of fullness or satiety.

Controlling hunger is a big benefit to those following healthy eating plans when hunger is a factor that can lead to failure with your healthy weight loss.

A study from the University of Connecticut had two groups follow a healthy meal plan and supplement with Glucomannan.  Only one of the groups also participated in strength training and cardio.

The results showed that both groups experienced significant weight loss and improvements in HDL (good) cholesterol. 

Glucomannan can also improve sensitivity with insulin, which means the carbs you eat will be used more for energy rather than stored as fat.

Glucomannan comes in a powder that you can sprinkle on foods or drink with water as well as a pasta form.  The Glucomannan pasta is an excellent substitute for pasta dishes and the noodles absorb whatever seasoning you mix with it to give it plenty of flavor. 

If you use the powder form try 1-2 grams before meals with water.

Many public health experts say that  trans fats in hydrogenated oils are to blame for many of the premature deaths that have taken place.  There was a recent study review done by the Harvard school of public health that said trans fats may increase your risk of many chronic diseases and that it can also promote weight gain. 

So what type of oils should you consume with your healthy diet plans?  Should you consume any at all?

One thing we do know is that we can’t rely on vegetable oils when it comes to our healthy eating plans.  When you see "vegetable oil" listed on a food label it could be a couple different versions.  It may mean soybean oil, corn oil or even a blend of sunflower or canola oil. 

The one thing that is common is that it contains high levels of Omega 6 fatty acids.   These Omega 6 fats which are polyunsaturated fat are not that bad when they are balanced out with Omega 3 fats.   The problem is we don’t consume a balance of these fats.  We typically consume a 20:1 ratio of Omega 6 fats to Omega 3 fats.  A high intake of Omega 6 fats increases inflammation in the body, which may increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer according to a 2008 review of studies by the Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health. 

The most nutritious way to consume oils with your healthy diet plans is to balance your intake of Omega 3 and Omega 6 polyunsaturated fats.  Also include saturated and monounsaturated fats as well.  So your healthy eating plans could include some olive oil to your salad, eat cold water fish a couple times a week and use coconut oil when you are making some stir fry. 

You can even consume butter!

What??  Did I just say eat butter?  Isn’t butter full of saturated fat and dangerous for us?  Walter Willett, M.D. and chairman of the department of nutrition at Harvard University states that the health scare with saturated fat and cholesterol was blown out of proportion.  In 2010 there was a review of 21 studies that was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and it stated that there was no conclusive evidence that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, stroke or cardiovascular disease. 

The reality of it all is you can use butter, but just like with any other high calorie oil or high calorie food for that matter you need to eat it in moderation and control your overall intake.  Butter is also an excellent source of natural conjugated linoleic acid, which some research has shown to help with weight loss as well as a cancer fighting nutrient. 

So we know to moderate our oil intake, but do we know which ones to choose more than others?  Here is a quick chart that gives you some guidelines on which oils are better or worse for your healthy diet plans. 

Putting an 18% tax on pizza and soda would likely get U.S. adults to reduce their calorie intake enough to lower their average weight by 5 pounds a year says a study out of University of North Carolina.  This would help with your healthy weight loss diet. 

The estimate on this soda tax or junk food tax would save people 56 calories a day.  Really??

Do you really think that someone would reduce their intake by 56 calories because they are not buying soda or junk food?  Or better yet that a higher tax will stop people from buying these foods. 

Bad soda.  Shame on you!

Are we really blaming soda and junk food for our obesity?  What about our brain telling our hand to put the food in our mouth?  Or our brain telling us to put that bad soda in our shopping cart?

When you are buying a shopping cart full of groceries this week are you going to analyze how much tax is being charged on the specific foods you are putting in your cart.  If that could potentially work then why not lower the tax on healthy foods so someone saves money and lowers their grocery bill when choosing healthy foods.

Policymakers are once again treading into an area where they have absolute no experience and have no clue what they are doing. 

Don’t blame soda and junk food for your failed healthy weight loss diet. 

Let me hear your opinion.  You just heard mine and now I want to hear your opinion on this. 

Yours in good health,

Jayson Hunter RD, CSCS

You may be giving yourself a sugar stress test every single day and you don’t even know it.

Doctors use what is called an oral glucose tolerance test to diagnose patients with prediabetes and diabetes. 

For this test you consume 75 grams of glucose to see how your body body processes the sugar.  It is essentially a stress test for your pancreas and is something you should not normally do.  Yet, we seem to do this every day and many times worse than this test. 

One 24-ounce soda often contains more than 75 grams of sugar. 

Maybe you think your body can process this large load of sugar, but everything wears out at some point.  If you are constantly stressing your pancreas at some point it may say enough is enough and start to not work so well.  Outcome is diabetes and a failed healthy diet plan.

Some symptoms to look for: 

Severe hyperglycemia:  Blurred vision, extreme thirst, frequent urges to urinate

Hypoglycemia:  You feel weak with cold sweats, anxiety, blurred vision, or tiredness a couple hours after a sugar binge.  This one is more easier to spot.

If you experience any of these symptoms ask your doctor about conducting an OGTT test, which is more accurate than a fasting blood sugar test.  Make the most of your healthy diet plans.

Studies have shown this for years and those on high sugar diets tend to have 32% higher triglycerides when consuming processed foods. 

What happens is your body can’t metabolize all this HFCS and sugar consumed in processed foods as fast as you eat it.  So your liver puts some of the foods glucose and HFCS into your bloodstream to be used for energy.  The rest of it is stored for later use. 

The problem is if your liver’s tank is full it will store these sugars as excess triglycerides.  Your liver can store about 90-100 grams of glycogen, so it converts the excess to fat or triglycerides. 

When you maintain a healthy weight or follow healthy weight loss you can keep your triglyceride level in check.  If you are overweight or are gaining weight your triglycerides will start to accumulate and become a key predictor of heart disease or strokes. 

If you are overweight or gaining weight here is what you need to do.  Lay off the sugary and starchy foods as well as the sugared drinks.  Make sure you are exercising at a higher intensity for 5 days a week.  Your body wasn’t built to handle all that sugar and you need to make sure you are burning enough calories to use what you do eat for energy and not have excess sugars left over to be stored as fat.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the World Health Organization, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion agree – you should eat more fruits and vegetables.

Up to 10 total servings a day!

  That’s a lot of food.  

And besides having to eat all that food, maybe you don’t love the taste of fruits, vegetables or greens.  Or you don’t have time to shop 2-3 times a week to buy fresh fruits, vegetables and greens? 

 And don’t get me started about preparing the food (washing, chopping, peeling, dicing, mincing, steaming, grilling, microwaving, broiling, and baking can be a real pain in the rear!)

If You Can’t Beat Mother Nature, Join Her!
 

Click here to learn more about how you can still benefit from all the rich vitamins and minerals ==>>  Healthy Eating Tips

Peanut Butter Bars

2/3 cup flax meal
2 scoops Prograde Protein Vanilla
4 Tbsp Natural Peanut Butter
1/2 cup Water
Stevia, to taste (approx: 2tsp)

Blend ingredients together in a bowl until it becomes a blob of dough.  It will be somewhat sticky.  Place the sticky dough into a small casserole or baking pan and smooth out into a flat level surface.  Then put in the refrigerator to cool or you can freeze them if you prefer.  Once cooled or frozen you can cut them up into bars. 

Makes approximately (4) 2in x 4in bars.

Nutrition Data per bar:

Calories:  205
Protein: 18 gms
Carbs: 7 gms
Fat: 11 gms

If you would like a lower calorie bar and maybe less of a peanut butter taste you can modify the ingredients by using 2.5 scoops of Prograde Protein powder, 2 Tbsp natural peanut butter, 1/3 cup of water and 2tsp of Stevia.  This will lower the calories per bar by approximately 35 calories, 3 less grams of fat, 1 less gram of carbs and 1 extra gram of protein. 

This recipe is also rich not only in natural monounstaturated fats that can help lower total cholesterol and LDL (bad) cholesterol, plus raise HDL (good) cholesterol, but rich in Omega 3 fats because of the flax meal and Omega 3 fats that flax meal provides.  You will consume about 2.5 gms of Omega 3 fats per bar. 

For another delicious protein ice cream recipe click this link =>> Peanut Butter Ice Cream

The Centre For Consumer Freedom has called out the Sugar Association regarding the press release requesting that the words "sugar laden beverages" or "sugar sweetened drinks" type of wording not be used.  The sugar associations claim is that sugar is not used in most sweetened drinks and High Fructose Corn Syrup is the sweetener used.

This is their attempt to confuse the consumer into thinking that sugar is better for you than HFCS.  Particularly since HFCS has been in the media in regards to researchers saying that it has contributed or caused the obesity problem. 

The USDA data shows that Americans consumed five million tons of HFCS  in drinks in 2008, which is almost 15 times the amount of sugar consumed through drinks in the same year.

The main reason why most food manufactuers use HFCS is because it is a cheaper ingredient, which means the manufacturer makes a higher profit. 

Here is a quote from the American Diabetic Association saying “high fructose corn syrup…is nutritionally equivalent to sucrose [table sugar]. Once absorbed into the blood stream, the two sweeteners are indistinguishable.”

So guess what? 

They are both equally as bad.

If sugar was used in place of the HFCS all these years we would still end up with the same problem we have now.  The food would have just cost us more.

The solution is to eat more natural whole foods and limit your consumption of processed foods and drinks.

That way you won’t consume unnecessary sugars or HFCS. 

Problem solved!

Diets with higher protein of at least 1.5 grams per kilogram of bodyweight and reduced carbohydrates of 120-200 grams per day appear to enhance and improve weight loss due to a higher loss of body fat and reduced loss of lean body mass. 

Short-term studies report beneficial effects that include:

1.  Satiety (fullness)

2.  Increased thermogenesis (faster metabolism)

3.  Sparing of muscle protein loss

4.  Improved glycemic control (your body uses the sugars more for energy instead of storing them as fat)

These results are likely occurring from lower carbohydrates which result in lower blood glucose and higher protein providing increased BCAA leucine levels. 

Increased protein intake also triggers the hormone glucagon which is the counteracting hormone to insulin and helps to keep your insulin from spiking.  This minimizes your chances of storing blood sugars as fat.

A key element in this diet appears to be the higher levels of BCAA leucine and its regulatory actions on muscle protein synthesis, controlling your insulin signal and the ability to use glucose for energy rather than fat storage. 

If you are like many weight loss seekers you do not eat enough protein in your healthy eating plans or healthy diet plans and especially not enough protein that contains the key BCAA leucine. 

Prograde Protein contains over 5 grams of BCAA’s and 2.5 grams of the essential amino acid Leucine. 

Grab a bottle today and start fast forwarding your weight loss with the help of the BCAA Leucine and a lower carbohydrate diet. 

Click Here To Grab Your Bottle Today =>>  Prograde Protein