Month: February 2016

This has been a tough couple of months trying to eat a healthier diet. The occasional pie, cake and ice cream dessert is to be expected over the holidays and even during this time of year. Now, though, I try so hard to get back on the healthy eating wagon. Healthier snacks, no ice cream (!!) small servings of desserts (as the family cannot apparently live without them now) etc. and Wham! Valentine’s day and chocolate….sugar and fat, they’re everywhere.

Knowing where the sugar and fat are coming from are one thing. I can control what I put in and how much of it. I read labels regularly too, to check on saturated fat content and the % of fat and sugar I may be consuming.

Why, I ask myself, when I feel like I’m eating better, do I find out that there are hidden sugars in almost everything?!?!? Loaves of bread, Applesauce, Barbecue sauce, Almond milk, spaghetti sauce! What’s happening here means I have to be much more vigilant in reading labels.

If you don’t read labels yet, you should do so now! The following list is all the different names for sugar: Be on the lookout for these being added in the same item, ingredients are listed in the order of weight; the higher a substance is in the label, the more of it the food contains.

Manufacturers use more than one type of sugar in a product and are allowed to list them separately, which may give the impression that a food had less sugar than it does.

Agave nectar   Agave syrup   Barley malt   Beet sugar   Brown rice syrup   Brown rice sugar

Cane juice solids   Cane sugar   Caramel   Coconut sugar   Corn sweetener   Corn syrup

Date sugar   Dextrose   Evaporated cane juice   Fructose   Fruit juice concentrate

Glucose   High fructose corn syrup   Honey   Invert sugar syrup   Malt syrup

Maltodextrin   Maltose   Maple syrup   Molasses   Sorghum syrup   Sucrose   Treacle

So, the lesson here is to read the label carefully as more than one of these could be present in a single item.

It is not recommended to stop eating sugar all at once! Remember when altering a diet of any kind, start small and work your way up to bigger changes.

Know how much sugar you are ingesting and how much your children are eating. Pay attention to the labels! Fresh fruits and vegetables are free from added sugars, so start there and add more of those to the household meal menu.

According to Consumer’s Digest, excess sugar consumption has been linked to type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity.

If it’s as simple as reading a label and making some changes to what we may be used to, I can do that, can you?!?!?

We’ve heard about the benefits of movement, and as mentioned in an Oprah magazine article, moving every day is the single best thing we can do for a longer life. This is a tough time of year for us Northeasterners, we have winter to deal with, so walking outside isn’t always an option. Community centers however, often have great tracks for walking and running and let’s not forget the gym equipment, whether it’s in your living room or the actual gym, there are ways to get around the weather.

Here are the steps to getting started on your walking habit:

• Warm up before starting! Just because it sounds benign, walking (especially if you aren’t in the habit of it yet) is as hard on the body as any other exercise. Stretch the hamstrings, quads, knees and hips most especially before you start.
• Pick a route that you know to be not only safe, but motivating as well. I love to walk through the local park that has the paved paths and the always inspiring scenery. Our walking park here even has exercise stopping points with various equipment available for stretching, pull-ups and the like.

If you don’t have a nice park to walk through, stay to the left side of the road facing traffic; share the road and be courteous to those that give you a wide berth.

• Start modestly, maybe a mile or two a day until you get into shape. Increase your distance when you feel motivated and confident to do so.
• Drink plenty of water- stay hydrated- you will need it!
• Listen to your body; if you feel pain, don’t ignore it.
• If available, walk with a buddy! If not, load your ipod or phone with your favorite inspirational music or pod-cast.
• Reduce your caloric intake so that all of your hard work isn’t thrown away by binge eating.

Medicine.net provides the following information on the benefits of walking:

Walking 150 minutes per week and losing just 7% of your body weight can reduce the risk of diabetes by 58%!

Walking strengthens your heart! For males, mortality rates among retired men who walked less than a mile per day were nearly twice that of those who walked more than two miles per day. In a study of female nurses, those who walked three hours or more per week reduced their risk of a heart attack or other coronary event by 35% compared to women who did not walk at all.

Walking is good for your brain. Researchers found that those who walked the equivalent of 1.5 hours per week had significantly better cognitive function and less cognitive decline than those who walked less than 40 minutes per week.

Walking is good for your bones: postmenopausal women who walk approximately one mile each day have higher whole-body bone density than women who walk shorter distances.

Walking for 30 minutes, 3 to 5 times per week for 12 weeks reduced symptoms of depression by 47%!

The list goes on! Let’s walk people!!