Many people think that working hard, keeping up on technology, and thinking outside the box is all you need to be the very best at what you do. Although the aforementioned is true, lack of energy and clouded thinking will certainly prevent you from functioning at your best.
I equate this to having a cold and not feeling your best while trying to be on 100% of the time for your clients. It isn’t because your not good at what you do, it is because you don’t feed your body correctly. There are so m any things you can do to increase mental acuity, and improve your overall health and it all starts with what you put into your body.
Ever heard the saying you are what you eat? It is a fact that if you eat the wrong foods your body will respond with lethargy, muddled thinking and ultimately in the long run, health issues and adult onset diseases.
So your asking where do I start? Lets start with what not to do, artificial sweeteners, actually artificial anything.
How many of us are really aware of how many Splenda, Equal, Aspartame, Saccharin products are available in the foods we consume? Are you a label reader and do you check how many grams of sugar were added to the item? Was it replaced with an artificial sweetener to be a so called “diet food”? This is a huge mistake most people make thinking that because they replace sugar with a sweetener, they are healthier. Wrong! There is so much evidence of the damage these sweeteners cause to your body, it is incredible that they are still consumed by so many people.
Low sugar or no – sugar items were introduced to the general public to replace the large amounts of sugar in the average diet. Most people are unaware exactly how much sugar and or artificial sweeteners are added to your foods. Trust me that is why the food tastes so good, it is either loaded with sugar or an artificial sweetener.
The easiest way to figure out how much artificial sweetener is added to your food or beverage is to read the label. The largest ingredient of what the product is made from is listed first on the label, then followed in succession the next largest item and so on. Again, be a label reader. It takes two seconds to check the label for amounts of sugar and or artificial sweeteners added to your product. By taking those two seconds to read the label, you are already taking care of your body better than you have previously.
It’s very important to realize the Splenda (Sucralose) is actually NOT sugar, despite its marketing slogan “Made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar.” Rather it’s a chlorinated artificial sweetener in line with aspartame (Equal) and saccharin (Sweet and Low), and with detrimental health effects to match.
Sucralose (Splenda) was approved by the FDA in 1998 as a table top sweetener and for use in products such as baked goods, nonalcoholic beverages, chewing gum, frozen diary desserts, fruit juices, and gelatins. Sucralose is also permitted as a general-purpose sweetener for all processed foods.
Here is what I find shocking….the approval was given after the FDA supposedly reviewed more than 110 animal and human studies, but out of these 110 studies, only two were human studies, and the longest one was conducted for only four days!
There’s overwhelming evidence that consuming artificial sweeteners will likely wreak havoc on your body by causing inflammation. Earlier news had centered mainly around artificial sweeteners’ ability to impair your appetite regulation and leading to weight gain.
However, the study mentioned above, published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, found even further disturbing news besides weight gain with Sucralose (Splenda):
- Reduces the amount of good bacteria in your intestines by 50 percent (this fact alone is so important as if your gut isn’t right most likely you are have major issues)
- Increases the ph level in your intestines and affects a glycoprotein in your body that can have crucial health effects.
- They also found unmistakable evidence that Sucralose (Splenda) is absorbed by fat, contrary to previous claims.
The belief that consuming artificially sweetened foods and drinks will help you to lose or maintain weight is a carefully orchestrated deception. So if you are still opting for diet choices for this reason, you are on the wrong path as these artificial sweeteners will wreak havoc on your system as well as your fitness regimen.
In reality, these diet foods and drinks can cause serious distortions in your biochemistry and ruin your body’s ability to control calories. As a matter of fact, it’s been shown that diet soft drinks can double your risk of obesity.
Nearly a decade ago, studies were already revealing that artificial sweeteners can:
- Stimulate appetite
- Increase carbohydrate cravings
- Stimulate fat storage and weight gain
Unfortunately, most public health agencies and nutritionists in the United States still recommend these toxic artificial sweeteners as an acceptable alternative to sugar. These agencies are wrong.
An alternative to artificial sweeteners is Stevia. It is made from a natural plant source and is extremely sweet. So sweet that you may need to adjust the amount you use in order to get the taste you are looking for. The good thing is that you can pretty much put it in anything.
Please make sure you have 100 percent organic stevia with no fillers or additives as some brands that are currently marketed start out with a natural product but they either process it with chemicals or add fillers. Again, this come back to reading the label before you buy it.
Getting off artificial sweeteners and on to a healthy alternative is paramount to your overall health and can lead to a healthier, happier, stronger you.
What will you reach for now that you know the facts of artificial sweeteners? should you have any question on artificial sweeteners or how I may compliment your organization’s meeting needs, please see my information listed below. Stay tuned for my next tip on healthy protein vs toxic protein sources.
tnebuloni@hpnglobal.com or 636-795-5048
