The school year is off to a start, and Labor Day is here, which means the official end of summer. There are both cheers and boos, pros and cons.
One of the biggest cons is that, all to familiar, morning rush once again. The days of cereal boxes and skim milk are long gone for many of us. If you have heard us speak in a group, you are familiar with our “Trifecta of Sugar” lecture.
A typical morning breakfast cereal topped with fruit has the glucose from the cereal, lactose from the milk and fructose from your fruit. Bad, bad and more bad leading to a day of cravings and carb loading, no doubt. If you start your day with carbs and sugar, you will crave more carbs and sugar as you go through your day, leading to that downward spiral as the day moves on.
What else can you have for breakfast on those busy mornings when you don’t have time to scramble, fry or poach? Try faux “cereal”! We have tried it, the kids have tried it, and it is family approved. The best part – you can make it ahead and seal it in an air-tight container in the refrigerator. It is ready to go for a breakfast in a hurry! Top with some heavy cream, and you are set for half the day if you eat it along side your bulletproof coffee to tea.
It is super simple to make, and you can really make it your own just by adding your favorite low-carb ingredients. Try a little, and let us know what you think!
Faux Cereal
Your ingredients and portions can vary. Mix it to your liking.
1 cup unsweetened flaked coconut, toasted
1/2 cup chopped macadamia nuts
1/2 cup chopped pecans
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup finely chopped almonds
2 Tbsp Kerrygold
1 Tbsp Swerve
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp Celtic salt
Directions:
Toast your coconut flakes, watching carefully so not to brown to deeply.
Chop all your nuts finely and lightly toast.
Melt the Kerrygold in a cast iron skillet.
Toss your nuts in the melted butter, and sauté until fragrant. Add your toasted coconut, Swerve and seasonings. Toss all your ingredients in the butter until everything is mixed and coated.
Allow it to cool and then store in an airtight container until ready to serve.
This can be served as a dessert over whipping cream or for a breakfast cereal with cream.
The kids are heading back or have headed back to school, and in so many ways it feels like a new year in general. The new school year brings on thoughts similar to that of the new calendar year.
What are you going to do differently?
One of the easiest things you can do is to add in healthy fats.
Toss the margarine – along with any other vegetable oil spread or Crisco type products. What is that stuff anyhow?!
Bring back butter! The real stuff – preferably grass fed. Have you heard of Kerrygold? It’s amazing, and I know more than a few people who eat this stuff straight off their knife.
Try coconut oil. If you have not heard of the amazing health benefits of coconut oil, there are countless websites that are singing the praises of this superfood! Authority Nutrition has a top 10 list. Add it to your coffee, use it place of your conditioner or moisturizer – really this stuff is down right great.
Bring back whole milk and cream. Quit using sugar water skim milk in your coffee, enjoy your coffee and/or tea with heavy cream or at least half and half. You will enjoy the cup so much more. Reading the ingredients on the bottle of non-dairy creamer likely requires a degree in chemistry.
If the kiddos are on skim and are whole milk phobic, try to stair step them up. Up it to 2% and then whole. Before they realize it, they will be in whole milk Heaven.
We will post more ideas in the upcoming days and weeks!
Thank you greatly to Fit Fusion and to those who came out to listen to Cindy speak this morning!
We sincerely hope that you left feeling empowered and armed with some tools to help you. I apologize greatly for not being there this morning and getting to meet with you as well. Cindy told me it was a great group!
Cindy and I LOVE talking about our lifestyle! While our way of eating may not be for every person, we believe that everyone should look at the way they eat, the way they feel, and how those two things are completely intertwined.
We would love the opportunity to help you, those you love, or even those with whom you work. If you have a group that you think would benefit from a nutritional talk, along with a question and answer session, we would absolutely be thrilled to talk to you!
We offer individual and group consultations, multi-session packages, and group talks, among other services, like pantry clean outs and cooking classes to help you get started on your path to healthier eating. Please visit our services page and remember we can customize as well.
In fact, we are currently helping some clients by simply monitoring, measuring, and simply trying to hold them accountable. If any of these things sound like something you maybe interested in, please do not hesitate to contact us through our website, email, or on Facebook.
We love what we do, and would enjoy the opportunity to help you feel better.
It is hard to believe that school has arrived once again!
I have one that started today and two that start in a couple of weeks. It is funny how that same old routine starts immediately. The one thing that stumps people the most in this rut of a routine is SNACK time! What do you serve for snacks when you don’t eat carbs? This one was tough at first, but it is much of the same foods that I pack in a low-carb lunchbox, so you can use this article as a means for both.
First off, toss the juice boxes – PLEASE! Those are loaded with sugar!
What about just water? If your child refuses plain water, try infusing it with fruit or cucumbers, or see if they like a sparkling water like La Croix. Mine think it is a treat! There are a ton of flavors from which to choose, so your family will never get bored.
Next, go through your pantry (or call us to do it) and toss the chips, cookies, crackers, pretzels, and goldfish – yep, I said it – even the goldfish. They are all carbs and carbs = sugar!
Your body doesn’t even know the difference between the two!
So, what do you feed the kiddos when you don’t have goldfish?
There are a ton of options, many of which we have posted before, but we will remind you!
This is the number one favorite in the Lutz household:
Veggies with Ranch Dip
Obviously, mine love the mini-peppers!
Other great dips to serve with vegetables are spinach dip, artichoke dip and pimento cheese. The later is a great lunch option as well!
Cheese crackers with salsa or guacamole is another favorite in our house.
Don’t forget about the yummy olives we posted last week too!
Sometimes if I want to dress things up a bit, I will do a nice cheese sampler tray. This is great for the little tastebuds too and fancy enough for company!
Another fun snack is the savory fat bombs. I was able to find some great snacks at Costco that were cheese and meat wrapped up together similar to a fat bomb. They are cute and would work great in a lunchbox as well.
A few other great options:
Cheese sticks or Baby Bells
Lunch meat (or the two together!) Choose your meat carefully. Stay away from the pre-sliced – get the quality meat (Such as Boar’s Head) in the deli and have it sliced thinly for wrapping. Watch for Nitrates and other additives.
Pickles
Refreshing Cukes
Celery and Queso
Whole milk yogurt (for the kids)
Jerky or beef sticks
A variety of nuts (w/out peanuts)
Stuffed mushrooms
Celery and nut butter
Deviled or Boiled Eggs
Sausage on a Stick
These are just a few of many options! Hopefully this will get you started in this back-to -school rush time! Don’t be afraid to try new things and push your kiddos to expand their palates a little. We hope everyone has a great beginning to the school year. Remember to be strong and eat right! You (and your children) need to eat healthy to be healthy! Happy Back-to-School week!
Feel free to drop us a note in the comments section if you have a question about lunch or snacks. Chances are, someone else is wondering the same thing! Also, feel free to share some of your favorites!
We just posted a page for those out there that would like to do more reading (or listening) and research a bit further on their own.
Sample of Erin’s Keto library
There are TONS of books, sites, Podcasts, and articles out there, and we have read or listened to so many of them. Together we have created a list of a few of our favorites and brought that list to our site to share with you. You can purchase these off of our Amazon store – right out of our page (EASY!).
Yes! We have read pretty much everything we can get our hands on regarding the topic of Keto! We have read a ton about Paleo as well (if you have questions on that) and the Paleo resources are much more abundant.
I will also say, from first hand experience, the selection of material at the San Antonio Library has also been very good. And if its not there you can ask online or at any branch they are extremely helpful in locating anything specific. This is a great way to try out cookbooks as well!
We are full of suggestions on this topic! Please just ask if you would like to know where to start depending on your goals we will lead you in the right direction.
For those of you that have seen our library of Keto resources, you know that it is extensive. We read A LOT! Erin and I are very passionate about diet and nutrition so we literally live, eat, and breathe what we preach! While we love our books, there is also a lot of information coming out in the news on a daily basis. In addition to our books, we subscribe to wellness and health magazines, both through snail mail and email, and scour the internet for the latest and greatest information. Gut health and depression has been in the headlines quite often the past few weeks. This is an article from Paleo Plan, an online subscription I follow on occasion:
“Did you hear the good news!? At long last…science is recognizing something that’s been known since antiquity…the interconnectedness between gut health and disease!
Recently researchers have begun to realize how depression and overall brain health are intimately connected to our microbiome (the 3-5 pounds of bacteria living inside our bodies which outnumber our own cells 10:1). Several studies are now linking depression with imbalances in our microbiome. In other words, having too much ‘bad bacteria’ and not enough ‘good bacteria’ in our guts can trigger depression (and a host of other diseases).
While scientists are rejoicing about their ‘discovery’ that the brain is indeed influenced by gut health, this is not breaking news. The father of Western medicine, Hippocrates, proclaimed over 2,000 years ago, “All disease begins in the gut”.
What is more along the lines of breaking news are recent headlines likening yogurt to Prozac for treating depression. Now before you go raid the dairy aisle of your local grocery store, let’s chat about why yogurt is being touted as an antidepressant.
Yogurt is marketed to contain probiotics, which are beneficial ‘good’ bacteria critical for immune function and overall health. These probiotics are also capable of altering our emotional state, and studies have found that supplementation with them can improve mood and act as a mild antidepressant.
There are some problems with most yogurts sold at the market (other than the dairy, sugar and other non-Paleo ingredients they commonly contain). Many commercial yogurt products have been pasteurized at high temperatures after the live bacteria cultures have been added, essentially killing all of the probiotics.
Further, we house hundreds of different species of bacteria in our guts, yet most yogurts (and probiotic pills) contain only a small handful of species. Dysbiosis (an imbalanced gut microbiome) is defined as overgrowth of any one type of bacteria. Unfortunately a ‘good’ bacteria can become ‘bad’ if taken in excess.
While yogurt may not be the best source of probiotics, there are several ways to increase your microbial diversity. Eating dietary fiber from whole, natural foods at every meal feeds the good bacteria in your gut and colon, helping them to naturally populate. Other foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, coconut kefir or yogurt, kombucha, live probiotic drinks, and other fermented/cultured vegetables are packed full of living probiotics. The key is to select a brand that is live or raw, meaning the bacteria haven’t been killed via pasteurization. Better yet, you can make your own raw fermented foods!
Lastly, it’s easy to overconsume any one type of bacteria if you take the same probiotic pills over and over. That’s why I urge my clients to rotate their brand of probiotic supplements and ideally get their probiotics from whole food sources.
Ok, so yogurt is probably not the”new Prozac” as news reports are so eagerly proclaiming, but the message is valid: a happy gut precedes a happy mind! It’s time for us all to quit fearing bacteria, and to embrace the reality that our bodies contain more bacterial cells than human cells…now that’s some food for thought! :)” – Paleo Plan
While we do not recommend yogurt for adults on a Ketogenic diet, I do allow my children to have good quality, unsweetened yogurt from grass-fed cows. It has the quality probiotics as well as the nutrients from grass-fed cows that you can’t get from any other kind of yogurt. This one in particular is also WHOLE milk yogurt that is almost impossible to find in this day of low-fat everything! It is the best I have found and a great treat for the kiddos.
I was listening to this same study on Good Morning America this morning and then came across it online as well, so I wanted to share it and put it in line with the Keto diet. It is written from a Paleo perspective so it does not follow all of our rules exactly, but it does have some good tips about cleaning up your gut! This is where Keto helps a ton! Fat is great for the brain and Keto does a great job cleaning up the gut bacteria even alone. The GMA segment was mainly focusing on carbs causing depression and the great probiotic foods we can use to help it. We all know we need to cut the carbs, but not everyone knows that there are actually healing foods that can repair some of the damage we have caused.
Dr. Perlmutter’s new book entitled, Brain Maker is all about the gut, and the foods you can use to clean it up! In fact, a large part of the article above is taken directly from his book. This is on my bedside table at the moment, and about to move to the kitchen to try the recipes he has included in it as well. Check it out in our Amazon Store!
The gut and the brain are more connected than we ever thought. What you put in your mouth can greatly effect what happens in your brain. Even more, as ketoers, we know that the brain prefers fat as a fuel, and by replacing your carbs for fat you are already helping. Now imagine going a step further to feed it healing foods as well!
How do we cause damage? Many ways, but a BIG one is antibiotics. We try to limit antibiotics as much as possible. While they were created for life-saving measures, they are highly overprescribed and frankly abused this day in age. I only take them and give them to my family if they are absolutely necessary – and by that, I mean a raging ear infection, sinus infection or something we know, without a doubt, an antibiotic can fix. If a virus is a possibility – I pass. Another example; I had a severe allergic reaction to a yellow-jacket sting last week. After two days my foot swelled so badly that I couldn’t get a flip flop on and it was turning colors. I reluctantly went to an emergency clinic when my foot was hot to the touch. The doctor immediately wanted to give me an antibiotic to reduce the CHANCES of infection. I did NOT have an infection, I had a reaction! I verified this and refused the antibiotic. There ARE cases when an antibiotic is needed. Just tell your doctor that if it’s not necessary you don’t want it. So many doctors today are quick to provide a fix because they think that is what YOU want, when in reality, you may just need to wait a couple of days to shake off a virus. If, however, an antibiotic is taken, you need to know that it not only kills the bad bacteria, but also kills the GOOD bacteria your body needs for many functions. I know it sounds crazy, but your body NEEDS bacteria. There is actually a purpose for it. So what to do, if you are sick with a fever and NEED an antibiotic? Take a great quality probiotic TWO hours after taking your antibiotic. While there isn’t exact science, this seems to have the best results in replacing some of the good bacteria you kill with the antibiotic. Here are a couple of probiotics we believe are GREAT ones. I do take these daily and switch them up after I finish a bottle.
These first two need to stay in the refrigerator:
This one below does not need to be refrigerated so it is great for travel:
To sum it up…Take care of your gut and it will take care of you. It kind of goes along with what we have heard for years…”You are what you eat.” It seems now, that this saying is more accurate than we ever imagined!
Take care of you, yours, and your gut! Happy Friday!
Last Sunday I sent my two oldest children off to camp in another state. They were super excited about their time at camp except for one thing…the food!
It is kind of funny that this was somewhat upsetting to them considering other children look forward to the pancakes at breakfast, chicken fried steak, and the candy store. Other children that go to this camp rave about the food, but mine, of course, were anxious. I have to admit, it makes me a little anxious too, but so proud of them at the same time for knowing that they understand the foods that fuel their bodies best. If you read my post recently about my children refusing the almond flour muffins it makes sense.
My oldest is definitely Keto-adapted. The other two have a way to go, but my middle child would be closer if not given outside choices. As parents, it is virtually impossible to keep our children healthy at all times. Erin and I have a 90/10 rule. If you are sugar-free and Keto-adapted 90% of the time, forgive yourself for the other 10%. Many times it can’t be helped if you are away from home also. If my children are 75%/25%, I am happy. I can’t control everything that happens at birthday parties, grandparent’s homes, and eating out with friends, nor do I try. Don’t get me wrong, I am a bit of a control freak, but I know a bad ending when I see it coming! The last thing we want to create is the forbidden fruit syndrome. They need to experience the difference in how food makes them feel to make them WANT to eat healthy. This takes time, just as it does for us. My goodness, it took me over 35 years to figure it out! Hopefully with our guidance it won’t take our children as long.
Once they figure out that carbs and sugar make them feel badly, it becomes much easier. That is, until camp time; or really anytime they are away from home for a prolonged period of time! I tried to counsel them about food choices before they left. I thought about requesting no sugar from the camp, but my husband talked me out of it saying this is their time to be kids. Again, the 75/25 for them, and he was right. My prayer is that they always make good choices, and just like most other bad choices, they will feel the consequences of them quickly if they decide to buy three candy bars and a gatorade at the camp store for snack. I have to admit, I am really curious to see how it goes. This is a lot of freedom for them.
The best advice I could give them was to remember the foods we eat at home and try to mimic them. If everything is fried or brown, go for the salad bar option and pile on the proteins and full-fat salad dressings to make sure you are energized. Instead of the cinnamon rolls and waffles at breakfast, remember how much better and energized you feel when you choose eggs and bacon for breakfast. They can skip the extra bread, have two patties instead of a bun, and go for extra veggies instead of the mashed potatoes. Pick the bag of nuts or sunflower seeds in the camp store instead of a candy bar or crackers. They know how food makes them feel now, so now is the time to put that into play. I think we all realize there will be days when there may not be a better choice, but that is okay too.
As many of us send our kids off for a few weeks, we pray for their safety, lasting friendships, spiritual growth, and growth as individuals. Encourage them to make good choices in all aspects of life including nutrition. Know, however, that if they can’t always make good healthy eating decisions, it is okay. The most important thing that you can do as a parent in teaching them, as in so many other aspects of life, is modeling. If you are making good eating choices in front of them, and cooking good healthy, low-sugar meals for them when they are sitting at YOUR table, you are making a world of difference in their futures. They will have those memories of dinnertime rituals at your table forever and carry those on to future generations. So set those examples at home, and with a little hope and a lot of prayer, let’s look forward to a future generation of very healthy eaters that can make great decisions on their own.
We are so excited about this article! July 10, 2015, the New York Times printed an article, that in our opinion, is long over due.
The authors of this article appear to know what they are talking about:
Dariush Mozaffarian is dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. David S. Ludwig is the director of the Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital and the author of the forthcoming book “Always Hungry? Conquer Cravings, Retrain Your Fat Cells, and Lose Weight Permanently.”
“BOSTON — SINCE the publication of the federal government’s 1980 Dietary Guidelines, dietary policy has focused on reducing total fat in the American diet — specifically, to no more than 30 percent of a person’s daily calories. This fear of fat has had far-reaching impacts, from consumer preferences to the billions of dollars spent by the military, government-run hospitals and school districts on food. As we argue in a recently published article in The Journal of the American Medical Association, 35 years after that policy shift, it’s long past time for us to exonerate dietary fat.”
So today I served up some leftover hamburger patties for my kiddos. As I was fixing my lunch and carrying on with my day, I suddenly realized that not one of my three children even asked for a bun! I had one ask for blueberries, one ask for milk, and the other ask for cheese, but not one asked for bread! What a glorious day!
This is what our hamburger used to look like:
Hopefully this image doesn’t send you to the nearest burger joint! Honestly, this image does nothing for me anymore. As a self-proclaimed carb-aholic, I am amazed that I no longer have cravings for the bun! The meat – yes! I could care less about the bun though. I never thought I would say this, so I post in order to bring you hope for a happy bunless forever.
I am so grateful too. A typical 100% whole wheat hamburger bun has 25-35 grams of carbs, and generally is about 75% carbs or more when calculating macros (Fat, Carbs, Protein). I’m not even going to talk about the dreaded refined white flour buns! And…30 grams of carbs is about my max intake of carbs on a typical day so that bun would be it.
I knew I had made it past the carb craving stage, but I also knew it would be a more difficult task for my children. After all, they usually eat what they are served and find themselves in places with many offerings. In the beginning of this new “Way of Eating” (WOE), I heard a lot of comments like, “How long are you going to do this diet?”, or “Why can’t we have buns?”
It is hard to explain to children how wheat, something that is grown from the earth, is harmful to them. I used to mill my own wheat and bake my own bread for goodness sakes. I get the questions! I used to think I was doing all the right things by giving my children fresh milled whole grains. Then I read Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD and Grain Brain by David Perlmutter, MD. Wow! What eye opening reads! Being a faithful person, I always believed that anything provided on earth and grown from the ground had to be good for us. I had no idea how much the wheat we were provided has been changed over the years by human scientists. It is actually very sad! I prefer my family eat things from nature, not the product of a scientist. So, that is why I removed wheat not only from my diet, but that of the rest of my family as well.
I was shocked today when I realized that there was not a comment, not a mention, not a whine for bread! Even the kids get over it!
At breakfast today, I served grain-free lemon blueberry muffins, and my oldest told me that he just doesn’t really care for the muffins anymore. When I asked him why he didn’t like the muffins, he told me that it wasn’t these muffins in particular, it was just muffins in general. He asked for a poached egg instead.
Wow! Breakfast breads used to be a staple, and now they are turning them away! What a corner we have turned.
So, I hope that this gives you a glimmer of hope that the whole family can live this Keto lifestyle. I emphasize lifestyle. This is not a diet for us anymore – it is a lifestyle. It is the way we shop, eat, cook, and live. We love it! It gives us more energy to get through the day and through these years of parenting. The kids notice the difference too. Everyone just feels better, which gives us the willpower to get through the choices that used to challenge us. Now it is not a obstacle for us, and surprisingly our children either. I do want to say, that I don’t offer the options at home, but if we are out, I don’t tell the kids it is off limits. I let them make the choice for themselves. I never want them to feel like the things we choose to eat are “forbidden fruit”. I try to educate them to make healthy choices so that they have a lifetime of healthy eating, not just the forbidden foods we tell them they cannot eat. Example teaches what 10,000 words cannot! Be a great example for the kids, and they will follow suit!
Here’s to healthy eating and healthy teaching! It is possible!
For the most part, I think most would agree that sugar is bad, very bad! It causes a copious amount of diseases, is almost entirely responsible for the obesity epidemic in our country, and is 8 times more addictive than cocaine. Yes 8 TIMES more addictive than COCAINE!
So what about all those “sugar free” choices out there? Well, this is the definition by the FDA of “sugar free” : “Sugar Free”: Less than 0.5 g sugars per RACC and per labeled serving (or for meals and main dishes, less than 0.5 g per labeled serving) (c)(1)
Contains no ingredient that is a sugar or generally understood to contain sugars except as noted below (*) You can read their definitions on the FDA website here. The problem with this definition is the fact that there are a lot of ingredients these days that are hidden in our foods that will spike your insulin levels faster than cane sugar and are not identified as so called “sugar”. Many of these are sneaky ingredients in foods you would never guess like salad dressings, spices and seasonings, and marinated products. These are foods that you may still be eating because I know you are not eating those awful processed foods anymore, right?
You need to know that just because you don’t see “sugar” or dare I say, “high fructose corn syrup” on the label does not mean you are home free.
If you see any of these ingredients – Stay away – far, far away. If you are still drinking diet drinks – wean yourself, by drinking sparking water, La Croix, fresh brewed tea, or water! It does the body good!
The sneakiest one on the list for me has been the Maltodextrin! It is in more than you could imagine. I have found it in sauces, and especially seasoning mixes. For instance, I used to love dumping a packet of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix into 16 ounces of sour cream for a yummy veggie dip. Then, I actually took a minute to look at the ingredients, and there it was, in black and white – #3 on the ingredient list – Maltodextrin. That was a huge wake up call for me when I thought I was doing it all right! I cannot say it enough, “READ YOUR LABELS!” A really good rule of thumb to follow is this: If it has more than 5 ingredients, you probably shouldn’t eat it, but if it has ingredients you cannot pronounce, you definitely should not eat it! I guarantee that if you saw the manufacturing and chemical processing of these products you wouldn’t want them in your body. Best to choose foods grown from the earth or raised grazing the green grass. These are your REAL FOODS!
The other mention on this subject is the Glycemic Index. There is more study needed on this index, but it is a good resource going back to ingredients like Maltodextrin. The Glycemic Index measures how much the food you eat affects your blood sugar levels. The higher the rating, the greater the effect the food will have on your blood sugar. The scale ranges from 0 to 100, with 100 being the highest (well-used to be the highest). A 100 rating will shoot your blood sugar through the roof! Here are some examples:
Remember that Maltodextrin? Well, it measured higher than pure Glucose which used to top the scale:
Maltodextrin – 110
Pure Glucose – 100
Splenda – 80
Sucrose (Table Sugar) – 65
Maple Syrup – 54
Honey – 50
Lactose – 45
Coconut Palm Sugar – 35
Maltitol – 35
Agave – 15
I like this website published by the University of Sydney, that allows you to enter in foods to calculate the impact it has on your body. This website published by Harvard is also an eye-opening chart that lists common foods with their Glycemic Index as well as the Glycemic Load which takes into account the serving size, or “dose” of sugar. The difference between the Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load is the serving size. The “Index” measures the sugar impact on the same amount of food, not a typical serving size. The “Load” uses the Glycemic Index as its foundation but takes serving size into account.
Watch out for those hidden sugars. “No Sugar Added” always mean sugar! Food labels are tricky. I really like the way JJ Virgin writes in her book, “Let’s be honest. You get excited when you see that sparkly starburst on the box telling you there’s been no sugar added to those fruit roll-ups. Well, I’ll be delicate here. They’re taking some poetic license – with you health. Manufacturers give you some credit, and they know that if you saw a box that read “21 teaspoons of added sugar for your metabolic upheaval!” you might think twice. So they’ve spent a lot of time and money testing ways to get around your sensible objections so they can manipulate you into buying as much of what they’re selling as possible, guilt and worry free. They’ve made all your favorite treats “without added sugar,” so you could have your cake and eat it, too….And just because a manufacturer labels a food or drink “no added sugar,” that in no way means that it doesn’t contain sugar. No added sugar does not mean sugar-free. It can also mean they’ve used fruit juice concentrate as their sweetener. That’s essentially fructose without the fiber. (Fructose goes straight to your liver!) And remember that white flour will end up as sugar anyway, so many of the ingredients in your no-sugar added cookie will turn into sugar as soon as you start munching. Labels can be misleading.” JJ Virgin – Sugar Impact Diet.
In a nutshell, read your labels – the ones on the back, buy “Real Food”, and know your sugars and their impact. And remember:
A typical morning breakfast cereal topped with fruit has the glucose from the cereal, lactose from the milk and fructose from your fruit. Bad, bad and more bad leading to a day of cravings and carb loading, no doubt. If you start your day with carbs and sugar, you will crave more carbs and sugar as you go through your day, leading to that downward spiral as the day moves on.
What else can you have for breakfast on those busy mornings when you don’t have time to scramble, fry or poach? Try faux “cereal”! We have tried it, the kids have tried it, and it is family approved. The best part – you can make it ahead and seal it in an air-tight container in the refrigerator. It is ready to go for a breakfast in a hurry! Top with some heavy cream, and you are set for half the day if you eat it along side your bulletproof coffee to tea.
There are TONS of books, sites, Podcasts, and articles out there, and we have read or listened to so many of them. Together we have created a list of a few of our favorites and brought that list to our site to share with you. You can purchase these off of our 
