Happy Birthday to Me

Good Morning Team

Now your probably thinking ‘are all these blogs just about him’. The 1st was an introduction to me, the 2nd was a day in the life of me and this one is all about his birthday. Me, me, me. Well it would be a very good observation and I promise most of my future content will not be about me, me, me.

It is indeed my birthday today but it’s not a ploy to receive happy birthday messages from everyone. With celebrations there comes the tendency to eat incredibly tasty foods. More than usual. Most of us do it. For my next posts I would like to focus on very important nutritional changes required to improve your health. You’ll be surprised to hear that these are things you should reduce or eliminate altogether rather than include in your diet.

The first one is ‘SUGAR’. This substance is added to almost anything to make products taste good. Companies have mastered the art of creating food and drink that stimulate your taste buds and have you wanting more. Sugar is possibly one of the most addictive substances in the world, trumping cocaine. Seriously there have been numerous tests on mice whereby given the choice they always go for sugar rather than cocaine

Most processed foods and drinks will include sugar in some shape or form. The labelling does not always include sugar in the ingredients which is outrageous. Instead you will see glucose syrup, fructose, dextrose, maltodextrin and possibly one of the worse, high fructose corn syrup. Keep your eyes out for these and stay clear of them.

Sugar in most forms has a very negative impact on your body and brain. It is in fact sugar that ruins your body and eventually turns into fat. You will hear me bang on about the benefits of fat in my posts. I am very passionate about how healthy fats have been vilified over the last 50 years or so. Ultimately fat does not make you fat. Yes I said it. FAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU FAT.

Keep an open mind to this if it is the first time you are hearing this. Eating it will not give you a cholesterol issue if you consume the right fats such as eggs, extra virgin olive oil and avocados to name a few. I’ll be coming back to this a lot over the coming months as it is something very close to my heart and the cornerstone of my own nutritional choices.

Another side affect of eating too much sugar is inflammation. As most people consume too much sugar, we have forgotten what it feels like to not be inflamed. There are a lot of reasons for inflammation which would need a post of it’s own to explain but sugar is toxic to the body. Especially in high doses. We have become used to the feelings of inflammation such as achy joints and muscles as well as brain fog. This is inflammation of the brain.

Anyway I digressed. As the first step towards improving your health you need to at least reduce your sugar consumption. Take more time looking at the ingredients on food and drink products. You will be very surprised how much of the sugar like ingredients named above (there are way more than this) are in them.

Now I’m not saying this will be easy as I am fighting my own personal battle against sugar. I had a real issue with sugar up until a few years ago. Everyone has there vice and mine was sugar. Cookies, flapjacks & chocolate used to be almost a daily part of my diet and took a very long time to cut back. I’m now 24 days without any processed sugar. I’ve found that even the smallest amount would make me crave more and I would binge. This would only happen once or twice per week but that is enough to upset your health goals and give me the symptoms of sugar you don’t want.

Everyone is different but try to implement this into your lives and see the differences in your body and brain. It won’t be easy but be patient and determined until the cravings stop. They do eventually go away (remember it takes on average 66 days to embed a habit). I’ll talk about some of the other foods and drinks to reduce and/or eliminate then these changes to your health will be obvious.

If you would be interested in some guidance in your health and well being reach out to me and we can talk through some changes. Be prepared to be honest about your food and drink choices as well as your exercise regimen if you have one. There will be no judgement from me.

Let me know if this has been helpful. I’m super interested to hear your progress reports as this is why I set up this blog in the first place.

Own your day and be bulletproof

Rael