Resist All Sugar and Be Well

If you want a fast, proven short-cut towards optimizing your health and if you want to make your body much more alkaline immediately then it is highly advisable to stop eating sugar immediately.

Sugar is not in and of itself a bad thing. Basically, sugar is the body's primary source of fuel. In the proper amounts and from a natural, unrefined source, glucose is beneficial and necessary for health, and even life.

here are a number of terms that refer to health problems that are sugar-based. Insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, type2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome: all are conditions that are telling us that the body's basic energy processing systems are in danger of breaking down.

Some people who are addicted to sugar feel physically unwell most of the time. They may not even realize that they feel bad until they kick sugar and suddenly feel well.

How Much Sugar is Safe?

Most people on the Healthy and Active Program discover through the blood profiling and also through their change in diet that eliminating all sugar possible from their diet is the way to health.

White Sugar Crystals

The World Health Organization released dietary guidelines in 2003 that stated that not more than ten percent of your total overall diet should come from sugar. The average energy requirement is two thousand calories per day, so that means that no more than two hundred calories, or about 50 grams of sugar should be in your daily diet.  This is the most that you should be consuming at any time but preferably you should consume much, much less if you can. This recommendation is an older one and it has not been revised. The bottom line is that sugar is a simple carbohydrate that is converted very quickly into glucose which is a challenge for your body to store as glycogen. It ends up in your blood stream and stored as fat.

Tracking Sugar Intake Can Be Confusing

Many people think they are cutting sugar and then are aghast to find out that they still have high blood sugar, high glycerides in their blood or diabetes problems. That is because there are so many hidden sources of sugar in our diet.

Here is an example of how confusing tracking your use of sugar can get. The typical serving of seemingly healthy low-fat yogurt contains about 32 grams of sugar, which is the equivalent of eight teaspoons. That means that in one fairly small portion of a "healthy" food you've consumed about 64 percent of the total daily-recommended sugar intake. You can see how easy it is to go beyond that when you consume cola drinks, cookies, sauces, syrups and other sweet foods.

Sources of Hidden Sugar

It’s not easy to quit sugar. Though it's not considered a drug like nicotine or opium, it can be very addictive and sabotage all weight loss efforts.

It is best to avoid -

• Soda
• Sports Drinks
• Vitamin Water (Made by Coca-Cola containing as much as 40 grams of sugar)
• Store-bought cookies, cakes, or pastries
• Fruit juice (even though juice sounds natural, it contains high concentrations of naturally occurring sugar, and should be generally avoided)
• Candy
• Condiments that contain sugar or high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
• Chinese food
• Breaded foods (even something like a Japanese Tempura can be loaded with sugar
• High-glycemic fruits, such as watermelon, mango, or pineapple (
• Maple syrup, honey, sugar, chemical sugar substitutes (such as Splenda, Equal, Sweet'n Low)
• Ice cream or frozen yogurt
• Muffins
• Gourmet Coffees
• Gourmet Tea Blends (an example is Oprah Chai tea that is packed with sugar)

Another hidden source of sugar is cigarettes.  A sugar is comprised of approximately twenty percent sugar that the tobacco has been sprayed with to improve it's taste!

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41) 440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Michael Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.

The Role of Insulin in a Healthy Metabolism

One of the areas of health that is definitely impacted in a positive way by embarking on a Healthy & Active lifestyle is in the area of metabolism. Once you have determined, through blood profiling, which are the most suitable foods for your particular physical type, you begin to convert the food that you eat into energy more efficiently. Your body does not have to produce excess amounts of insulin to process all of the sugars and carbohydrates that flood into your system and overload it when you are not consuming a healthy diet.

How Insulin Works

Insulin is a hormone that plays a key role in the regulation of blood glucose levels, which is important because every cell in your body relies on insulin to transport glucose to them from the body.   If the body has sufficient energy, then insulin signals the liver to take up glucose and store it as glycogen. The liver can store up to about 5% of its mass as glycogen. However, if there is too much glycogen floating around in your system that sugar is then deposited into the bloodstream and converted to fat.

Whenever  there is a malfunction of insulin production, the person develops what is called a metabolic disorder.  Eventually this results in either Type 1 or Type 2 Diabetes.

An Example of Healthier Foods for Diabetics

In Type 1 Diabetes the body does not produce enough insulin to regulate blood glucose and the body uses other sources of energy to keep running, including ketones that are produced by the liver to compensate for the absence of glucose.  Type 1 diabetics must inject insulin to keep skyrocketing glucose in the blood that cannot be utilized by the body, from damaging their body’s systems.

In Type 2 diabetes the body is experiencing a condition called insulin resistance, meaning that it is less able to take up glucose from the blood.  In the earlier stage of this disease the body responds by producing more insulin than it would normally need to eventually putting such a strain on the pancreas that it is no longer able to reproduce any insulin at all.  This can eventually lead to a complete dependence on insulin.

Too Much Insulin Production Causes Obesity

These conditions or a predisposition towards them also have a lot of impact on how your body will store and use fat.  When the liver has used up its capacity of glycogen, insulin signals fat cells to store the sugars as fat (as triglycerides) instead.  

This is also why it is very important for you to avoid eating foods that could wear out your pancreas by forcing it to react to high levels of sugar in the blood.  One of the miraculous things about the Healthy and Active Program is that it has been known to reverse high blood sugar in Type 2 diabetics.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41) 440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Michael Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.

Your Healthy and Active Brain

When we think of metabolism, we do not often think of the brain as being a metabolic organ, but that is exactly what it is. It consumes more energy than any other organ in your body. In fact, it consumes up to twenty percent more. This is why when you begin to have problems with your metabolism, you also sometimes begin to feel foggy or memory problems.

Your Brain Uses a Lot of Glucose

A Neuron in the Brain

If your metabolic system is not producing glucose properly then you are definitely going to find yourself feeling unwell physically. This is because even though the brain comprises only two percent of the entire human body, it needs to use fifteen percent of the energy that your heart produces as it pounds each beat, twenty percent of your total oxygen intake and twenty-five percent of all of the glucose that your body can produce.  That is a whopping one-quarter of all of your metabolized energy for use in just one part of the body.

Insomnia, clumsiness, loss of balance, nervousness and mood swings are symptoms to watch for if you expect disruptions in the way your body metabolizes glucose.

Understanding Organ Dominance and Weakness

Even though the brain is the dominant consumer of metabolic energy in your body there are other organs that come into play and may need more support in the form of fuel just simply because genetically or physiologically they are weaker.

For instance, you might have heard the phrases “that person was born with weak kidneys” or “born with a strong heart.” These are references to what is we know to be a genetic truth about every human being. For instance, if you were born with a genetic predisposition towards diabetes, it means that you might have a pancreas that is weaker than most. This in turn would necessitate the prescription of a diet that was friendlier towards supporting the long-term health of the pancreas over a long period of time. This means that it uses more energy than other organs and the more energy the weak organ uses, the more it is deprived from other areas in your body, especially the brain.

This is where the beauty of the HAP analysis of your metabolic type and blood work really come into play as diet and lifestyle changes that support the individual health of each of the dominant organs such as the liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, pancreas and the brain. This integrated approach toward treating the patient works as a form of prevention for developing serious diseases as well as a way to optimize the entire health profile of the individual.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41) 440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Michael Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.