Type 2 diabetes is epidemic in this country, and typically begins with insulin resistance. What we usually read or hear about insulin resistance is that it’s a result of overweight/obesity. This is not always the case, since the reverse can be true. Insulin resistance (IR) may actually cause overweight. What’s important to remember is that no matter which comes first – IR or overweight – the metabolic consequences are exactly
Labeling Loopholes: Do You Know They Help Sneak Sugar Into Your Food?
Let’s use this post on labeling loopholes to cover three of them. The first is glycerin. Glycerin (or glycerol) is an alcohol. It’s not like ethanol, so it won’t give you a buzz, but it is an alcohol. So what? Maybe you haven’t heard of it or haven’t paid much attention to it, but it’s used as a sweetener. It’s in many foods – including about 99.999% of the food
Withdrawal and Sugar Cravings
By Joan Kent One significant reason for sugar cravings is withdrawal. Withdrawal can promote cravings under various circumstances. If someone has recently stopped drinking alcohol, cravings for sugar can be strong and frequent. This involves the brain chemicals stimulated by alcohol. The same three chemicals (dopamine, beta-endorphin, and serotonin) are also stimulated by sugar. The similarity makes sugar a short-term substitute for alcohol when cravings occur. It also explains why
Fructose: The Sugar No One Thinks Is Sugar
By Joan Kent My last few posts have dealt with aspects of sugar addiction, including sugar’s effect on health. It’s important – you want to be healthy, right? Still, I’ve avoided one topic because it’s almost guaranteed to alienate people – fructose. The sugar found in fruit. It’s nasty. We’ll get to the details on that soon enough. Some people are surprised that fruit could be bad. After all, it’s
Sleep, Health and Weight: How Are They Connected?
Early cycling classes. Late nights. Approaching holidays. Fall quarter can be a busy time, and it might be difficult to get enough sleep each night. But it’s important to do so because sleep deprivation affects several factors related to health and weight management. For one thing, sleep deprivation, even short-term, can lower leptin levels. Leptin is a powerful satiety hormone that tells the brain/body it’s had enough food and doesn’t
Teach Cycle-and-Row Like a Pro
If you’re about to start teaching a class that includes both cycling and rowing, here are a few tips. Stay off the bike. To handle all the variables in a cycling/rowing class, you’ll need to be on your feet, moving around the room. Will you warm up? On-bike stretches won’t work in a split class. Decide whether you’ll begin with a full-class stretch and warm-up, or have the participants take
Salt’s Okay? Sweet!
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Joan Kent It’s possible, even likely, that you have cycling class members with hypertension. It’s possible that they’ve been told by their doctors to cut back on salt in their diets. If not, it’s still possible that they’re cutting back on salt because that’s the prevailing wisdom for controlling blood pressure. As we all know, sodium is loss in sweat. The more we sweat, the
Stomps: High-Resistance, High-Intensity Intervals for Indoor Cycling (Very Cool)
If you’ve done stomps in your cycling workouts, you may think I’m crazy when I say this, but I’ve always liked them. They’re extremely tough but appeal to that twisted part of me that enjoys hard training. (I know: you’ve got that part, too.) If you haven’t done stomps, they’re designed to increase power in the saddle. I believe Chris Carmichael is generally given credit for the training, but his
The Best Part of Your Day by Jay Duplessie
Something amazing happened to me after class this week. Somebody came up and said “thank you for the motivational story you told during class. I came in here down in the dumps, but I’m leaving in a much better mood and feeling grateful for what I have instead of what I don’t. Thank you.” I have no doubt that every instructor reading this right now has experienced this at least
Healthy Candy: Looking For a Sugar Loophole (In All the Wrong Places)
Several months ago, an author known for being a strong proponent of healthful eating wrote an article about a new line of “good” candy bars. You know: organic ingredients, no preservatives, that sort of thing. The author took an if-you-can’t-beat-em-join-em approach. Candy isn’t going to go away, so let’s make better candy. Who makes these healthy candy bars? A company aptly named UnReal. Their idea was to duplicate the top-selling
The Benefits Of Rotten Food (And I Don’t Mean Sugar!)
My college roommate used to turn down yogurt, saying, “I never eat rotten food.” Now, there may be reasons not to eat yogurt, but the fact that it’s rotten isn’t one of them. Maybe a better term for “rotten” is fermented. Fermentation is highly beneficial for the digestive system, and we’ll get to that. Meanwhile, how do we know if we should eat rotten foods? Problems with bloating, gas, acid
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