We’re all familiar with some form of the expression ‘losing weight is about burning more than you take in’. I agree with this statement. However before I delve deeper into the subject I would like to add that while cutting and burning calories is an effective tool for weight loss, it is not the all-encompassing key to health. You have heard me say it again and again. The key to health is nutrients. Your body needs nutrients. Eat foods that are nutritious. Nutritious foods are WHOLE foods. Whole fruits, whole vegetables, whole nuts, whole grains, whole meats. You want your food to be as close to its original form as possible. The less it is chopped, processed, and formed the better. The fewer additives, the better. The fewer ingredients on the label, (or no label at all) the better.
With that said, this article will focus on easy ways to cut unnecessary, non-nutritious calories from our daily routines; calories we often don’t even realize we are taking in.
Who drinks coffee? There are over 150 million daily coffee drinkers in the USA. That is a lot of coffee drinkers. There are mixed reviews on the health benefits of coffee, but recent trends suggest coffee can be good for us in moderation due to antioxidant contents and energizing effects.
Now, who put creamer in their coffee? Who adds sweetener, or worse artificial sweetener? Consuming these products on a daily basis can be devastating to your health over the span of a lifetime. To make matters worse, most people consume their coffee in the morning when the body is coming off from a fasted state. Starting your day with sugar, which is also in milk and cream in the form of lactose, causes a spike in insulin. Insulin converts blood sugar into fat cells. Not the best way to start your day.
Ideally coffee should be consumed black. The way nature intended it to be. Black coffee is good for you. Toxic artificial sweeteners, sugar, excessive lactose and dangerous ingredients in non-dairy creamers obviously are not. Cutting these things from your diet and morning routine will bring noticeable health benefits and help you cut fat immediately.
Don’t drink coffee? Start your day with pop? Probably worse. And don’t be fooled by the 0 calorie label on the ‘diet’ version. Pop and diet pop are POISON! I know this may come as a shock or seem drastic. Millions of people drink pop every day and they’re still doing fine, right? Wrong, look at our state of health in this country. We are sicker than ever! Pop, diet pop and other products containing high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners and ingredients derived from genetically modified corn and soy are the number one reason.
Non-pop sweet drinks are not a safe substitute either. Read the ingredients on the labels of fizzy, ‘flavored water products’ or the flavors you can sprinkle or squirt into your drinks. These ingredients are banned in other countries and have a definite correlation with cancer occurrence in lab rat studies.
I hate to be so grim, but people need to realize what they are doing to themselves. This stuff is poison. Set yourself free and cut it out of your life! Drink water people! Pure water should be the only 0 calories drink you ever consume!
If you need that morning boost, stick to black coffee or unsweetened tea. These beverages boast several health benefits and in their pure form have almost no calories at all.
Liquid calories often sneak up on us. We often don’t realize we are taking them in because we are not eating them. But these liquid calories can really add up, especially if we are sucking down sugar all day.
Another easy health hack is rethinking our salad dressings. Salads are often the poster child for a healthy meal. And salads certainly are good for us, especially if it contains nutritious ingredients like carrots, peppers, mushrooms, avocado, local eggs, cabbage, whole meats, kale and spinach. But the way we dress our salads can often do more harm than good.
Brand name dressings typically contain a whole host of sketchy ingredients like monosodium glutamate (MSG), hydrogenated oils from genetically modified (GMO) crops, and mono and diglycerides to name a few. Like, what is this stuff? And how the heck did it get into our food? Cut this junk from your life! You will feel better!
A few healthy alternatives include olive oil and vinegar, or fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice (you can combine this with olive oil as well). Mustard makes a surprisingly great salad dressing and contains safe ingredients with no GMO’s. Add a little local honey to your mustard to spruce things up. Honey is a much safer sweetener than other refined sweet products. Salsa, hummus, or plain greek yogurt with added herbs and spices also can safely do the job.
I invite you to employ these practices in your daily routines. You will experience noticeable health benefits and cut body fat by dropping these unnecessary products from your diet. In France they use the expression, “à ta santé”, which means “to your health” so until next time, à ta santé!
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