
Sugar is BIG business. The average American consumes an astounding 2-3 pounds of sugar each week. In the last 20 years, we have increased sugar consumption in the U.S. 26 pounds to 135 lbs. of sugar per person per year!
These past couple weeks we’ve been getting the “What should I eat?” question. What we put into our bodies is extremely important and directly correlates with our output. If we put peanut butter into a brand new vehicle, that thing isn’t going anywhere! Same goes for our bodies…if we’re eating fast food and things that never go bad, like twinkies, then we are in trouble! Think about it, if there is something that has been sitting on the shelf for six months and still has 5 more years of shelf life, how can we expect our bodies to process that? Almost everything we eat should be able to go bad and/or die. CrossFit has kept it simple with the following:
What Should I Eat?
“In plain language, base your diet on garden vegetables, especially greens, lean meats, nuts and seeds, little starch, and no sugar. That’s about as simple as we can get. Many have observed that keeping your grocery cart to the perimeter of the grocery store while avoiding the aisles is a great way to protect your health. Food is perishable. The stuff with long shelf life is all suspect. If you follow these simple guidelines you will benefit from nearly all that can be achieved through nutrition.”
Sugar is probably the hardest thing to kick as it is practically in EVERYTHING! Dr. David Reuben, author of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Nutrition says, “…white refined sugar-is not a food. It is a pure chemical extracted from plant sources, purer in fact than cocaine, which it resembles in many ways. Its true name is sucrose and its chemical formula is C12H22O11.
It has 12 carbon atoms, 22 hydrogen atoms, 11 oxygen atoms, and absolutely nothing else to offer.” …The chemical formula for cocaine is C17H21NO4. Sugar’s formula again is C12H22O11. For all practical purposes, the difference is that sugar is missing the “N”, or nitrogen atom. …Refining means to make “pure” by a process of extraction or separation. Sugars are refined by taking a natural food, which contains a high percentage of sugar, and then removing all elements of that food until only the sugar remains. Studies show that “sugar” is just as habit-forming as any narcotic; and its use, misuse, and abuse is our nation’s number one disaster.
We know that glucose and vitamin C have similar chemical structures, so what happens when the sugar levels go up? They compete for one another upon entering the cells. And the thing that mediates the entry of glucose into the cells is the same thing that mediates the entry of vitamin C into the cells. If there is more glucose around, there is going to be less vitamin C allowed into the cell. It doesn’t take much: a blood sugar value of 120 reduces the phagocytic index by 75%. So when you eat sugar, think of your immune system slowing down to a crawl.
Here are a few helpful articles.
The Reclassification of Sugar as a Drug
Juice as bad as soda
This article gives a decent list of names for sugar on ingredients lists. Disclaimer: Not a fan a stevia or any other “wonder” subsitute! Nor do I think “taking it slow” is the best idea because there will never be an easy time to “quit”. Some good explanations under the comments sections why sugar substitutes are not okay!
Also on a side note, just because something says all natural or organic does not mean it is good for you. I once had a friend who ate a ton of cookies from Trader Joe’s all the time. She thought because they were all natural and organic that they were a-okay…NOT.
What are your thoughts? Also any tips, such as recipes, for the newbs who are just starting out? – post to comments
WoD
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Push Press 1-1-1-1
Split Jerk 1-1-1-1
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