Live Healthy NYC: Sugar in Fruit

Live Healthy NYC: Sugar in Fruit: The other nite I was at a party and I couldn’t help myself- I attacked a bowl of m&m’s. I know I probably shou...

Sugar in Fruit

The other nite I was at a party and I couldn’t help myself- I attacked a bowl of m&m’s. I know I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, as a health coach and lover of good nutrition, but yes, every so often even I go off the wagon. Oh, I did not feel well after. It is this type of moment that I am reminded of how poisonous sugar is.

I often hear that people won’t eat fruit. Sugar in fruit= bad idea. This notion is preposterous. This thought that fruit is somehow a bad thing to eat came into full swing with the low carb diet craze a few years ago. Often someone tells me that they avoid fruit because it’s “all sugar” or “loaded with carbs”. So, I’m here to set the record straight and come to the defense of some of the world’s healthiest foods – fresh, whole fruits.

 

Whether it's in a piece of fruit, your soda or a pastry or a candy bar, sugar is made up of the same two components: fructose and glucose. The ratios of fructose and glucose are pretty much the same in both fruit and table sugar. Neither type of sugar is better or worse for you, but your body processes them differently. Fructose breaks down in your liver and doesn’t provoke an insulin response. Glucose starts to break down in the stomach and requires the release of insulin into the bloodstream to be metabolized completely. Don't get the idea that because the sugar composition is the same in fruit and cake, they're interchangeable. (Seriously, they're not.) For one thing, fruit offers good stuff like vitamins, antioxidants and water, while candy and desserts are nutritionally void. Fruit also tends to have less sugar by volume. Plus, whole fruit has a lot of fiber, which actually slows down your body's digestion of glucose, so you don't get the crazy insulin spike (and subsequent crash) that candy causes. That also means your body has more time to use up glucose as fuel before storing it -- as fat. 

So, the idea that fruit is “loaded with carbs” or is “full of sugar” needs to be put into perspective. It’s true that when you eat fruit, the overwhelming majority of the calories you consume are supplied by carbohydrate – mostly in the form of fructose, which is the natural sugar in fruit. But that’s the nature not just of fruit, but of all plant foods – they’re predominantly carbohydrate (and that means not just natural sugars, but healthy starches as well as structural elements, like cellulose, that provide fiber). When you eat vegetables, the majority of the calories you’re eating come from carbohydrate, too. But you don’t hear people complaining that vegetables are “loaded with carbs”.

So, how much sugar are we talking about, anyway? An average orange has only about 12 grams of natural sugar (about 3 teaspoons) and a cup of strawberries has only about 7 grams – that’s less than two teaspoons. And either way, you’re also getting 3 grams of fiber, about a full day’s worth of vitamin C, healthy antioxidants and some folic acid and potassium to boot – and it’ll only cost you about 50 or 60 calories.

By contrast, a 20-ounce cola will set you back about 225 calories and, needless to say, won’t be supplying any antioxidants, vitamins, minerals or fiber. You’ll just be chugging down some carbonated water, maybe some artificial color and flavor, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 grams of added sugar – about 1/3 of a cup.

On average, Americans don't eat enough fruit, so don't cut it out of your diet in an attempt to limit your sugar intake! Sugar itself isn't toxic. But getting too much of it from soda, cookies, candy and cake is.

Live Healthy NYC: Find your Zen

Live Healthy NYC: Find your Zen: Do we ever really take time to slow down? “Indian summer” is in the air and I wonder how it’s possible that sum...

Find your Zen

Do we ever really take time to slow down? “Indian summer” is in the air and I wonder how it’s possible that summer’s over.

My summer was BUSY! I feel like I didn’t stop for a second. As I continued to work and my teenage children were home for most of the summer, I wore many hats: “camp director”, “activity and social coordinator”, “chauffeur”, “cook”, “laundress” and “maintenance worker”. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fantastic summer filled with lots of fun activities (beach, biking, tennis, golf, boating, bbqs) with family and friends and great weather. And I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. That being said, as I look back on the months passed, I feel like I didn’t breathe much. I was always on the go racing from one fun filled activity to another. And so, a week ago when my kids went back to school I thought that early to bed and early to rise would finally allow me to slow down and have a holiday!

Well, that fantasy hasn’t panned out! I was in my apartment elevator this morning with another mother who had just sent her son off to school. She said that she was more exhausted than she thought she would be as her life was busy once again with the hustle and bustle of school and work and family and friends.

The fall season is loaded with commitments- there’s even more rush and activity than I imagined!

However, it’s time to learn to push pause and slow down and breathe. I recognize that in life there will always be chaos. But the key is to be able to find “zen” as we move. If we can manage that (and hey we are great at multi-tasking!) while we can’t mess with mother nature (too much), I believe that we will actually slow down the aging process and we will look and feel a whole lot better!

Here are 3 steps towards finding inner peace and balance.

#1) Close your eyes and count to 10

It’s simple, really: Anytime you want, you can stop and close your eyes shut and turn your gaze inward and count to 10.

This works for little kids so why not for ourselves as well. When faced with a stressful moment, stop and count. Now, find your breath. Don’t move so fast that you take it for granted. Notice it. Pull a big inhale in through your nose, filling up your belly from the bottom of you all the way up to the top of you. Say to yourself let. Then exhale the breath out your nose from top to bottom, saying to yourself go. By breathing like this throughout the day you will increase your focus, slow your heart rate and feel balance and grounding.

#2) Laugh

Believe it or not when we are relaxed we are happy. And when we are happy, we laugh! Laughing is good medicine; happiness is the place where Zen lives.

#3) Be an early bird

The morning hours are the quietest, and finding some “you time” can set the tone for your entire day. Use this time to journal, meditate, or work out.

Think. Say. Do. Every action is first a thought. Every thought has an intention. Set a clear and positive intention to find your time and your own space in your everyday life. Think it, say it, and do it. You won’t be sorry.