There's so much to cover that I'm not really sure where to start. I'm going to start with what's currently on my mind after seeing "Fed Up", Katie Couric and Laurie David (yes, Larry David's (ex?)-wife's documentary about sugar and it's impact on childhood obesity in America.
Now let's take a step back. In April, Caryn and I decided to do the Whole30 paleo challenge. Caryn will be covering the details of the Whole30 and the book It Starts With Food in the next entry. The challenge is essentially removing a ton of food - most things that your body has trouble digesting, such as soy, gluten, grains, dairy, and things that have negative effects on your body; sugar.
My reason for doing the Whole 30 stemmed from the fact that my soy allergy was getting worse, and while my nutritionist had told me that eating soy lechitin was fine because it was a derivitive of soy and used in small amounts; my friend Becca had developed a soy allergy as well and said, plain and simple, that my nutritionist was an idiot. This was coupled with noticing that when I was out of the country, I felt fine. I spent 5 months in South America with no issues. Two months in Asia with no pain (until China, but soy is in everything there). Any country OUTSIDE of the US I went to, eating natural, unprocessed foods, and my body was able to handle it just fine. The second I would get back? I would feel pains so intense, it was like an alien baby was trying to kick it's way out of my stomach. So what's a girl to do? Find out the root of the problem for herself. I planned to cut out soy completely, and see how my body reacted. I mentioned this to my friend Abbe who follows the paleo diet, and she started talking about the Whole 30 - a complete food elimination that essentially makes you go back to a natural state. Increases your energy, makes you faster, stronger, no pain, etc etc. Ironically when mentioning this to a third friend, Melissa, she said she was planning on doing a Whole30 (it's really big in the Crossfit community which Melissa had gotten into), so with a little support from my friends, I decided to sacrifice 30 days and give up almost everything I like to eat. With my partner in crime Caryn in for the long haul of course, since we do pretty much everything together, and all things food and fitness related especially!
It was a challenge cutting all of these things out simultaneously. My body felt like it was going into shock the first few days. The lack of sugar hurt the most. For someone used to having chocolate after every meal, I felt like I was going to collapse. I was like a drug addict, roaming around in a daze, dreaming of a fix. After a few days my body adjusted, and I started craving sugar from other sources. I literally broke down in tears one night in Trader Joe's because they were sold out of pineapple. PINEAPPLE! Who cries over PINEAPPLE!? My body was that dependent on sugar; I felt like I was going to collapse if I didn't get it somewhere, somehow. A couple weeks later, I decided to have a macaroon. Since they're made with mostly almonds and egg whites, I decided they were paleo-friendly. I omitted the fact that there was coconut sugar on the label, even though I was supposed to be detoxing from sugar. Well, one macaroon did not do the trick. Once I had one, it was like a demon was released from inside of me. All I wanted was another macaroon. And another. And another. I ended up eating probably 6 macaroons that night. And I know what you're thinking - big deal; if you're going to binge on something, at least it's healthy, right? But that's not true. There was no need for me to ingest 800 calories of macaroons as a 'snack' at 10pm. Sugar literally took over my brain and mandated that I just keep going. I've never felt this way eating vegetables, or chicken, or anything else sans sugar.
Once we completed the challenge, Caryn and I stopped at Levain bakery after completing a 10K in Central Park. For those of you not familiar, Levain makes unarguably the best cookies in New York City; quite possibly the world. They're about a pound of melted chocolate and probably contain about 500g of sugar. I had half a cookie, and felt like I was going to pass out. I went home and did exactly that. I PASSED OUT from sugar. I woke up 3 hours later feeling hungover (no, I hadnt drank the night before). I stumbled around feeling nauseous, disoriented and lethargic. This wasn't a normal after-effect of eating a cookie.
The point here is addressing the effects that sugar has - it's just not good for you. It makes you crave more; it makes you have a burst of energy and then crash. There are much more scientific places to go with this, but we'll cover that later on. It needs to be limited, and consumed in healthy doses.
What we learned after watching "Fed Up" last night, is that sugar is hiding EVERYwhere. So while we've gotten pretty good about scanning the aisles of Whole Foods to avoid blatant bad-for-you foods, here I was still buying 'healthy' foods that had upwards of 20g of added sugar!
The American Heart Association says that the normal daily allotment of ADDED SUGAR (not natural sugar that comes from fruit and regular sources) is:
Women - 25 grams (6 teaspoons)
Men - 37.5 grams (9 teaspoons)
That is the equivalent of pretty much one snack a day. Now the good news is, there are a lot of products that are being made that are low in sugar. One I discovered at Whole Foods the other day is called In Bar. It's a low sugar chocolate fudge bar. I haven't actually tried it yet. Caryn and I plan to have lists of foods that we find as we find them.
I will say this though - not all sugar is created equal. Fruit? Good sugar. Eat all the pineapples and apples and oranges you want. But when it comes to everything else - check the label. Added sugar needs to be avoided. Yes, you can still have chocolate in moderation. Many dark chocolates 85% and higher meet all of the requirements on our checklist - gluten-free, soy-free, low sugar. Just check the label. If it comes in a package, it's going to have to be analyzed. Question everything. Eat fresh when you can. Go to farmers markets! The one in Union Square (for the New Yorkers) is massive. I know there's one right by Borough Hall certain mornings; definitely weekends. Grand Army plaza by the entrance to Prospect Park on Saturday mornings. Outside the Bowling Green train station. They're everywhere, and the vendors sell more natural products. One of the most immediate items on my checklist is to stop buying packaged foods entirely and buy things from greenmarkets. Again, baby steps. This is year of bad habits ingrained in my DNA. But we'll get there!
Also I forgot to mention this earlier, but if there are specific topics you have questions about - what is soy lechitin? Why is gluten bad for you? What should I be drinking at a bar?? Ask away. It'll be great for us to have a focal point, since we don't even know where to really start :)a
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