How to Lose Weight Series - Habit 10

Pooja
Jun 16, 2018
3 min read

Updated: May 16, 2019

“The 3C’s of Life -Choices, Chances and Changes. You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change.”

Speaking of change, through the habit 8 we are looking at replacing two white substances in our life to embrace health and that is sugar and refined white flour. Don’t worry, I am not prescribing something that is impossible to live with. Simply you only need to focus on avoiding these two ingredients during 5 consecutive days of the week, we have the 2 day cheat day to indulge after all.

Many people think they are eating healthy - still growing fat - getting afflicted with various types of lifestyle diseases and wonder why. Dig two levels deeper and we understand that this is predominantly due to the fact that there are many products that are marketed or claim to be good for health but clearly they may not be.

Just to help you a bit here, would suggest you start reading the product ingredients that are printed typically on the back of the package you buy. This will help you decide whether something is healthy or not. Alternatively, you may find below a list of the foods that would have to be avoided during the 5 day week.

Biscuits, cakes, pastries, pies, tarts, quiches,cookies, scones, crackers, puddings, white bread, pastas, panipuri’s. Fats that have been found in the above and similar processed foods could have harmful effects on memory. It is certainly a healthier option to bake at home and replace sugar with healthier sweetener alternatives like maple syrup, honey etc.

Quick Scientific Facts:

When you consume, refined white flour, it releases sugars into your bloodstream quickly. Due to the high glycemic index of white flour, for the increased sugars that are spiked, your pancreas have to overwork to release insulin in sufficient quantity. If this is once in a while, the pancreas can manage, but with frequent consumption, insulin production will reduce making you prone to diabetes.
As the glucose lingers in your blood, it gets attached to proteins, this process is called Glycation which causes inflammation in the body, which can result into arthritis, cataract, heart diseases.
Refined white flour also raises up bad cholesterol in the blood(LDL) resulting into many health issues like weight gain, high blood pressure, mood swings.
During the refining process of wheat, all the nutrients are lost, to be precise more than half of the B Vitamins, 90% of vitamin E and all of the fibre is lost and it becomes acidic in nature. So, acidity is another issue that is created along with digestive problems, since white flour is the glue of the gut. All the refined white four based foods once consumed, since they don’t have fibre in them, it turns into glue in the intestines and congests the system, slows down digestion, resulting into a sluggish metabolism. This could result into weight gain, headaches, stress and migraines.

Healthy Alternatives

Whole grains: Substitute white refined flour with whole wheat grain flour, brown rice, quinoa, porridge, oats. Study from Harvard University, suggests that those who have had a diet rich in whole fibres were protected from many illnesses especially heart disease. Baking your own bread may be a good start.
Substitute Sugar: Substitute sugar with maple syrup, dates, honey, jaggery,molasses, Stevia. My personal favourite is jaggery and honey. You can chose yours.

Since I have personally tried and tested, I can let you know that this is easy to do. The substitutes will not even make you realize that you are missing something. Baking my own bread every morning has been a challenging to do, so have found solace in mixing and matching my breakfast with oats, eggs and a roll made of out of whole wheat, called chapatis.

All the best guys!! Would be great to learn what’s worked well for you as substitutes.

References:

FoodGym

Fitness Through Food

How to Lose Weight Series - Habit 10

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