by Joan Kent | Jun 22, 2015 | Health and Wellness, Instructor Training
The last post covered the sugar industry’s push to demonize fats and take the heat off sugar. Unfortunately, it was successful. Here’s what happened next.
Recommendations for increased carbs came from everywhere — including the 1991 Food Guide Pyramid. The bottom tier called for 6 to 11 servings of grains.
The Pritikin Wellness Center suggested diets of 7% protein and under 10% fat, leaving 83% or more in carbs.
My clients’ food logs showed that the carbs they ate instead of fats and proteins were not vegetables, legumes, or root vegetables, but sugars and refined-flour products.
During the low-fat craze, consumption of sugar soared. From 1984 to 1997, the increase in sugar consumption — not total consumption, just the increase during those 13 years — was 25 pounds per person per year.
This increase may have been due partly to a phenomenon known as the sugar/fat seesaw: as one drops in the diet, the other goes up. When everyone went low-fat, the decrease in fat intake was met by a huge increase in sugar.
The sugar/fat seesaw is acknowledged in science journals but not explained. In my 1999 dissertation, I outlined a hormonal and neurochemical explanation for it.
During the low-fat craze, consumption of artificial sweeteners and high-fructose corn syrup rose, based on USDA figures. In 1996, the Nutrition Action HealthLetter reported that US sugar consumption had risen again for the 10th consecutive year.
In addition — and it didn’t surprise me — obesity in the US became epidemic. The CDC reported that, after 20 years at 25% of the population, the number of overweight Americans increased to 33% in the 1980s. Investigators from the Minnesota Heart Health Program couldn’t explain the increase with data on dietary fat.
But they hadn’t yet realized that they should investigate sugar. As in the 1970s.
Clearly, increased sugar consumption benefited the sugar industry. The obesity epidemic was an unfortunate consequence of their profit-grabbing strategies.
Low Fat Fitness Pros See the Light
At first, the fitness industry jumped on the low-fat train, and I got trapped on it. Throughout the industry, weight-loss guidelines for clients reflected the low-fat dogma. At fitness conferences, attendee goody bags were filled with low-fat, high-sugar “energy bars” and more.
In the early 1990s, I made a presentation to fitness professionals on health problems associated with sugar intake. An angry woman stood up and shouted, “I have the same degree you do” — we both had master’s degrees in exercise physiology — “and you don’t know what you’re talking about!”
In 1995, I was invited to a fitness conference to participate in a panel discussion called “To Eat Carbs or Not To Eat Carbs”. The ‘panel’ included two people: a Pritikin Center researcher and me. It was structured as a debate — and someone definitely wanted me to lose.
I was kept in the dark about things, but the Pritikin guy was in on the plot. He was also positioned to speak second so he could challenge my words with his low-fat Pritikin rhetoric.
Toward the late 1990s, a controversy raged. The fitness industry began to reflect some of the controversy. We saw fitness industry publications that warned against carb intake, followed closely by articles promoting “carb loading” prior to athletic events.
Only a few years after its 1995 pro-sugar supplement, the AJCN devoted an entire 1998 supplement to the role of fats and oils in the fight against obesity and metabolic complications. Several articles in it addressed the failure of low-fat diets to effect long-term weight reduction.
Now we’ve come full circle. People are finally realizing the many ways sugar and high-sugar foods impact our health — diabetes, high blood pressure, mood swings, out-of-control eating, and more.
Bonus Tip: Stay Aware, Cautious and Skeptical
Because more people know more about nutrition now than at any other time I can recall, I don’t think the sugar industry will be able to bamboozle us with talk of the dangers of fats. Too much recent research has shown the benefits of certain fats — and the relative harmlessness of the ones we were always told were bad.
Will the sugar industry give up? Don’t count on it. I fully expect to see a push for the benefits of “sneaky sugars,” the ones that people want to believe are good for them because they offer an excuse to eat sugar.
Those sneaky sugars will include products sweetened with “natural” fruit juice. Or the agave syrup we see everywhere these days. And probably new ones we haven’t seen yet. Are they — will they be — good for you? Please believe me when I say “No!”
What we’re told about nutrition in the US is often not what we should know or do, but what will benefit the various food industries.
Sugar sneaks into our foods and our meals in many ways. It can affect health, inflammation, metabolism, appetite, and moods. It can cause cravings and binge eating. It can affect autistic kids, as well as pregnant women and their babies.
Fructose is arguably the worst form of sugar — there are serious issues with it! Yet people are more reluctant to give up fruit than ever before — it’s the preferred form of sugar for people who want to believe their diets are healthy.
I’ve written book chapters on fruit as the “final frontier” in nutrition health. And it may be.
by Joan Kent | Jun 15, 2015 | Engage Your Students, Health and Wellness
The current nutrition buzz is that sugar’s bad news. It is.
The fact that admitting this is considered a new direction by nutritionists, dietitians and the public shows how off-base the nutrition field was for such a long time. It even makes the nutrition field appear ridiculous.
At least, to me. I’ve been blasting sugar for 20+ years, at times getting blasted back for doing it.
But it’s worth tracking the events, so we can blame the culprits who deserve it….
Once Upon a Time, Sugar Was Bad
In science journals in the 1970s, sugar’s negative health effects were getting lots of attention. Films were available — some very good. A popular book was written on problems of sugar consumption: Sugar Blues, by William Dufty.
Interestingly, Sugar Blues was written before much (if anything) was known about the brain chemicals triggered by sugar. And way before any connection was made between sugar and appetite, cravings, health, moods, and more.
It wasn’t till 1975 that endorphin (beta-endorphin) was “discovered.” So the 1974 book was a little ahead of its time. And yet it was timely because scientists were researching sugar.
That wasn’t good news for the sugar industry. And the sugar industry is a powerful lobby in Washington, D.C.
If you don’t think food industry lobbyists influence the government, an eye-opening book is Food Politics by Marion Nestle. She describes the laborious, frustrating process of developing the original Food Guide Pyramid.[wlm_private ‘PRO-Platinum|PRO-Monthly|PRO-Gratis|PRO-Seasonal|Platinum-trial|Monthly-trial|PRO-Military|30-Days-of-PRO|90 Day PRO|Stages-Instructor|Schwinn-Instructor|Instructor-Bonus|28 Day Challenge']
Nestle was working for the USDA and visited daily by beef and dairy industry reps. Their complaints — and the pressure they applied — were significant factors in the Food Guide Pyramid, released in 1991.
Those complaints made the original Pyramid vague and confusing for consumers in several ways. Years later, it had to be revised for clarification. (That’s a side issue, but stay with me.)
The take-home point is that the food industries are the real constituents of the USDA. We, the consumers, are not. Our health is of far less concern to that government agency than placating its constituents.
Which brings us back to sugar in the late 1970s.
The sugar industry didn’t care for the scientific emphasis on the health problems linked with sugar and began working its evil.
Sugar Devil Spins Fat As the Enemy
By 1984, fats had been designated the new Dietary Demon.
From that point until the late 1990s — and beyond — we suffered through the low-fat craze. And a craze it was, although it was disguised as the Right Way To Eat.
Some people still believe it! They even cite Ancel Keys, whose work has since been debunked by several sources.
During that time, several things happened — none good, except for the sugar industry.
First, scientists turned away from sugar and began looking at fats.
They investigated health problems linked with high-fat diets, saturated fats, red meats, cheeses, and other “bad fats.” New scientific findings emerged and found their way into mainstream media.
In 1995, an entire supplement of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) published the papers from a conference on dietary sugar.
The presenters were hand-selected from researchers whose names I immediately recognized. They consistently found that sugar had no negative consequences on health, weight, or even cavities.
Do I have to tell you that funding for these scientists come from makers of sugary food products?
Here’s the take-away: After the conference, all companies attending (General Mills, Kraft, and other big sugar-users you know) could “legitimately” claim that their reps had attended a scientific conference — where it was conclusively shown that sugar is not bad for any reason whatsoever.
Also during the low-fat craze, the food industry developed low-fat and nonfat versions of their products. Conveniently for the sugar industry — and not coincidentally — the products used sugar to replace the flavor lost when fat was removed.
One example? Cream cheese. The full-fat product contains no sugar, but the nonfat version did and does. A line of low-fat frozen foods — ironically named Healthy Choice — added sugar to every product, including soup. Other companies followed.
Product developers even created artificial fats. Remember Olean and Olestra? (How about the side effects, such as anal leakage? Perhaps that’s a story for a different post.)
With all of these low- and nonfat foods available, dietary fat fell far below the original recommendation of 30%.
That 30% had been endorsed by the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society — until the low-fat craze hit us.
My clinical observation was that protein intake fell, too, especially among women. Protein contains fat — sometimes a lot — so women who were concerned with weight loss just let that go. They started eating carbs, and lots of them.[/wlm_private]
Part 2 is about how we became a nation of sugar junkies and what happened when fitness professionals finally saw the light.
by Joan Kent | Jun 1, 2015 | Engage Your Students, Health and Wellness
Recently, a client who very seldom gets sick and who is typically quite vigilant about her nutrition told me she got a respiratory infection. This brief post describes what she learned from not sticking with her nutrition guidelines and is meant to be a caution for anyone who finds value in it.
Apparently, while the client was feeling quite under the weather, she simply stopped paying attention to her usual, healthful diet. One evening, after a day of less attentive eating — nothing actually junky — she noticed that she felt, in her words, “absolutely terrible.” She assumed that her health had taken a turn for the worse, until she reflected on how her “food day” had gone.
Throughout that day, she had eaten almost no protein and lots of starchy carbs. It was then that she remembered how insulin-triggering carbs affect inflammation: they trigger series 2 prostaglandins.
What Are Prostaglandins?
As outlined in a previous post, prostaglandins are short-lived, hormone-like chemicals. They’re released by cells and travel through the interstitial fluid to neighboring target cells. Prostaglandins regulate many cellular functions and come in 3 types. All types are derived from foods (specific fatty acids), and depend on enzymes for their formation.
What Insulin Does
Insulin changes the enzymes that act on the fats we eat. When we eat high quantities of insulin-triggering foods (usually carbs) — or when we eat insulin-triggering carbs by themselves — the enzymes shift in the direction that brings on series 2 prostaglandin formation.
Type 2 prostaglandins promote pain and inflammation, while types 1 and 3 work in the opposite direction and can reduce both pain and inflammation.
We Can Fix Things With Food
Fortunately, the client was pro-active enough to go back to her usual diet of mostly vegetables, along with protein and moderate quantities of complex carbs and healthful fats. She started noticing that she felt better within several hours.
This advice could fit right in with the “No Days Off” message from several months ago. Mainly, I hope it serves as a helpful message for your students, if they ever get sick.
by Joan Kent | May 26, 2015 | Engage Your Students, Health and Wellness, Master Instructor Blog
As a nutritionist, I find that my food is under scrutiny all the time. Recently, I attended a weeklong seminar that had nothing to do with nutrition, but my food was still scrutinized.
Every morning started with a different fitness activity. Afterward, the instructor gave us breakfast guidelines, recommending that we eat just fruit “because it’s easy to digest.”
I know better than to start my day with a plate of sugar, so I went to the buffet and put together a meal that was appropriate for me.
Because this will be relevant in a moment, here was my breakfast:[wlm_private ‘PRO-Platinum|PRO-Monthly|PRO-Gratis|PRO-Seasonal|Platinum-trial|Monthly-trial|PRO-Military|30-Days-of-PRO|90 Day PRO|Stages-Instructor|Schwinn-Instructor|Instructor-Bonus|28 Day Challenge'] spinach, walnuts and a poached egg. The buffet didn’t have poached eggs alone; they were part of the eggs Benedict. But I simply eat around unwanted foods, so I ate the egg and left the English muffin and Canadian bacon on my plate. No sauce.
A woman in the seminar walked over to my table and said I wasn’t complying with the fitness instructor’s guidelines. She pointed her finger at each item on my plate, one at a time, and criticized it. This happened while I was still eating my meal.
If you’re thinking it was inappropriate for her to do that, I agree. Perhaps to my discredit, I objected to her behavior, and explained my objection to the fitness instructor’s guidelines to start the day with sugar.
What can we take from this? (Other than not to criticize other people’s food while they’re eating!)
– Know your nutrition needs. These may be different from your likes. Know what you need to thrive and feel good. Seek out those foods, no matter what.
– Don’t let other people’s guidelines steer you away from the foods you know are best for you. The myth that fruit is healthful persists. Many people still have no idea that fructose — the sugar in fruit — is arguably the most unhealthful sugar. Stay with what works for you, no matter what.
– Navigate a buffet carefully to find what you need, especially vegetables. I found the spinach for my breakfast at the omelet station. Diced tomatoes and mushrooms were also there. If there are no salads, a burrito station can provide lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and more. You get the idea. Find vegetables, no matter what.
– Know how to find what you need on a restaurant menu. Friends laugh at me because my meals “always look the same.” They do: protein, vegetables, complex starch, healthful fat. Do I care if my friends laugh? Absolutely not. I just want the meal I want — and have learned to create it, no matter what.
For example, I’ve ordered two salads for my main course when the menu offered nothing better. In the south, I’ve ordered fried chicken and scraped off the breading with my fork. Keep your needs in mind and forget the rest — including the House Specialty! It’s frequently a high-fat, sauce-laden extravaganza that might make you feel ill afterward.
– Pay attention to how you feel after a meal — both good and bad. If everyone else felt good after a meal but you didn’t, that food wasn’t for you. If you felt great, try to duplicate that meal as closely as possible at other times and places.
– Remember your protein needs above all. Keep it as lean as possible. The fitness instructor told us protein is overrated — but he knew nothing about foods and brain chemistry.
If you’re a sugar addict who’s trying to stay away from sugar, protein is key. It will help you survive and thrive as you give up sugar. If you need to carry envelopes of protein powder with you, do it. I’ve done that many times. Get your protein, no matter what.
– Don’t worry about the opinions of others. You deserve to eat right and feel good. No matter what![/wlm_private]
by Joan Kent | May 11, 2015 | Engage Your Students, Health and Wellness
Image credit jokeroo.com
Sleep difficulties can take several different forms. Let’s look at one.
If you have trouble falling asleep at night, one easy solution is to eat a small portion of carbohydrate, preferably starch, about an hour or so before bed. Starch examples include quinoa, potato, rice, sweet potato, pumpkin, oats, even pasta.
What Starches Do[wlm_private ‘PRO-Platinum|PRO-Monthly|PRO-Gratis|PRO-Seasonal|Platinum-trial|Monthly-trial|PRO-Military|30-Days-of-PRO|90 Day PRO|Stages-Instructor|Schwinn-Instructor|Instructor-Bonus|28 Day Challenge']
Starches stimulate insulin, and insulin allows a specific amino acid (tryptophan) to reach the brain. When tryptophan reaches the brain, it’s used to make serotonin.
Serotonin relaxes us and allows us to fall asleep. It’s also converted to melatonin, the sleep hormone. Melatonin has the additional benefit of anti-inflammatory action, which is one reason sleep is so good for us.
When Starch Doesn’t Work, Add Turkey
If you try starch and still can’t fall asleep, another suggestion is to start your pre-bed food ritual with a little bit of turkey, which contains a relatively high amount of tryptophan. Eating carb together with turkey will have the same effect that you may have experienced after a Thanksgiving dinner — feeling sleepy after the meal.
Although turkey is usually blamed for that sleepiness, the tryptophan wouldn’t reach the brain readily if we didn’t eat carbs with it. Several larger and more abundant amino acids compete with tryptophan for brain entry. In effect, they block tryptophan and prevent it from reaching the brain.
Those competing amino acids are used to form dopamine and norepinephrine, which make us alert.
How Carbs Help
When carbs trigger insulin release, the insulin transports amino acids throughout the body. They can then be used for the various functions that aminos are used for: formation of antibodies, hormones, receptor sites, enzymes, and more.
At that point, tryptophan — smaller in size and less plentiful — can reach the brain. It can then be converted to serotonin.
Why Starches? Why Not Sugar?
Some people tend to crave sugar before bed, but eating it can backfire for a couple of reasons.
Sugar triggers the release of endorphins and dopamine. As mentioned above, dopamine is a brain alertness chemical, so it could wake us up, rather than allowing us to fall asleep. Some people are more sensitive to the dopamine effect of sugar and might find themselves “wired” after eating sugar.
Starches, in contrast, tend to produce relaxation without that wired feeling.
Another Problem With Sugar
Another way sugar can backfire has to do with glucose. This could wake us up in the middle of the night.
Sugar tends to trigger high insulin secretion. That effect is much more pronounced in some people than in others. (Those people are called “carbohydrate sensitive”, but don’t be confused by the name. We’re still talking about sugar before bed, rather than starch.)
In someone who is sensitive to sugar in this way, the extra insulin might cause glucose levels to drop very low. It might seem as if the low glucose would make someone so tired that they’d stay asleep all night and even having trouble waking in the morning.
Instead, the drop in glucose tends to cause us to wake up in the middle of the night and have difficulty going back asleep, even if we feel tired.
So starch again seems to be a better solution.
Bottom line
Eat protein throughout the day, and eat less protein with your dinner. Eat a small portion of starch about an hour or so before bedtime. Add turkey if it doesn’t work. Avoid late-night sugar.[/wlm_private]
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Note from John: Last Thursday a participant asked me; “John, where do you find all of these helpful tidbits about eating? I'm a sugar addict like you (I share my own personal struggles with my class) and appreciate your helpful reminders.” I responded by telling her that Dr. Joan Kent, our resident nutritionist at my website ICI/PRO, publishes these weekly. I simply copy down a few notes or print the article and share the info during recoveries.
