Or CAN you?
It seems NOT.
What type of person are you?
I am slim. I hate formal exercise. I do a lot of running around during the day and gardening but not formal exercise like running 5k per week or going to the gym to ‘increase my heart rate’. I sit a lot and read and work on my lap top. I must be really unhealthy and doing my body no favours at all? I don’t eat biscuits, I have ice cream on very odd occasions. I don’t eat many carbs at all.
You are a bit over weight. You are never unwell. You walk the dog every day for at least 3k, briskly and up hills, you love going to the gym and playing golf. But you do like a couple of biscuits with your morning coffee and a piece of cake after lunch, and crisps with a glass of wine are just the best way to unwind. Your favourite food is something wrapped in pastry or curry or pasta. But you must need all that food – you do so much exercise.
Who is really the more healthy here though?
Skinny but more healthy diet and less active or slightly overweight but much more active?
A recent study by Spanish scientists found that you who are overweight but fit and reckon you are never ill are not as fit as you believe and could well be heading for health problems unwittingly.
520,000 adults wrote down what they ate over a period of time and they found that the overweight but active people who tended to eat a lot of carbohydrates such as pasta, potatoes and chocolate were twice as likely to have high cholesterol and develop heart disease or type 2 diabetes as those who did no exercise but had normal body weight.
Which foods cause inflammation
1. Carbohydrates enter your bloodstream quickly and spike your sugar, which creates an inflammatory response. Insulin puts the sugar into your cells and when there is too much of it, your body tries to store the excess in your fat cells and they enlarge and you get fatter.
Inflammation is actually a good thing – it is a protective response by the body in response to foreign substances entering the body. The immune system notices a foreign substance and is your body’s way of healing cell damage caused by the foreign ‘enemy’. However, if this inflammatory reaction happens too often – as when you eat carbohydrates all day, every day, it can then lead to arthritis, heart disease, stroke and diabetes 2.
2. Red or processed meats because they are high in saturated fat that causes inflammation.
3. Omega 6’s which are found in canola oil, corn oil, mayonnaise, sunflower oil, peanut oil.
So what CAN I eat to help my body perform best!?
If you want a treat – eat nuts or fruit – both contain carbohydrate but natural sugars that do not spike your blood sugar in that way because they contain more fibre and lean protein to help slow digestion.
Go meatless once or twice per week.
Eat more veg than meat on your plate.
Reduce the processed meats you choose.
Use olive oil for cooking.
If you like rice, eat brown rice.
Eat oatmeal for breakfast instead of sugar filled cereals.
If you do eat processed food look at the list of ingredients on the package – chose those that have less than 4 grams of added sugars. Added sugar is not the same as natural sugar you find in fruits.
You really need to change your mindset though – you wouldn’t put lemonade in your expensive but replaceable car – it would stop functioning. Why put things into your irreplaceable body that will stop it from functioning properly and probably result in pain, when there are so many alternatives. Try to make a few changes and you will be surprised at how quickly you don’t need those highly sugary, carbohydrate laden treats after all!