5 Ways I Cut Sugar Back In My Diet

One of the things I have struggled with in my life, is sugar consumption.  If I tried to cut back on sugar from my diet, it would come at me like a zillion monsters attacking me.  The more I tried, the more I failed.

Before a dear friend passed away from cancer, one of the last things she said to me was, "cut sugar out".  It hit me hard and I know that she was correct.

Sugar is great.  It tastes so good.  It is addictive.  It gives me a high.  I love it.  I love it.  I love it and I want more of it.

Unfortunately, too much sugar is not healthy for the body in what I've learned.  No, I'm not some doctor of nutrition or anything like that.  I'm really speaking about my own understanding and comprehension.

So, here I am trying to get off the stuff and the harder I tried, it came back at me like a boomerang effect.  The more I tried, the more I craved it and then it left me feeling horrible and weak and defeated.  I knew there had to be a way.

Here's what I did.  While this may not work for everyone, maybe something in what I'm writing about will help you.

1. Mind Body and Mindfulness 

   This was not about some thought philosophy or mantras or meditation.  Not that those things don't help because they do.  What I'm referring to here is something more than the standard mind body and mindfulness thinking we all preach that we do.  In this case, I went in and started working hard on my inner self and from a cellular body component, I learned to release and let go of things.  It was about using Unified Therapy to go in and face the fears and demons of my past so that I could reclaim my life.  These things are essential for true growth into awareness and consciousness.

2. Mindful Of What You Eat

   What I mean by mindful is to be consciously aware of what you eat.  It isn't about chastising yourself and saying "I screwed up".  It isn't about counting calories or how much you consume or finding something to beat yourself up on.  It is about observing and noticing how much sugar you eat.  Become aware of the sugar content and sources in the stuff you buy.  You'll be surprised at how much sugar is in things you would not think it was.  Just observe and be aware of it.

3. What can you cut back?

   Normally there is something you can cut back that starts to drop the sugar consumption.  Make it something that is small and you think you can do without.  See if you can go a day or a few days, then maybe a week and a few weeks.  Try it small, build up on the success and use that to help motivate you further.  For me, I stopped buying these big bags of candy and having them sit around at my house.  If they were in the house, I was going to eat them.  By not having them at my house, it made it much easier to just say no.

4. The First Thing You Eat

   I noticed and found this by an odd observation, that if the first thing I ate in the morning had no sugar, it helped me the rest of the day.  Without that sugar fix first thing, my taste buds and neural pathways had a fighting chance.  It is almost like my brain found a new pathway to what I ate, rather than getting the early morning addictive fix which set me up for the rest of the day.  The more I did this, even if I followed it by some sugar in cereal or something else, I was more empowered.  I found I ate less sugary stuff and had less of a desire for it if the first thing I hate was without sugar.  I've checked this out a few times on myself and I get the same result.
   
   

5. Splurge

   As much as you may want to cut sugar out completely, sometimes you just have to let yourself go and splurge.  If I said to myself that tomorrow there will be absolutely no more sugar, I'm sure I would be beating myself up very hard.  If I just work to cut it back but allow myself to splurge every ONCE in awhile, then I've got the control.  I'm empowered.  Now, I don't mean splurge every day, but begin to limit it.  

Find alternative sugar and sweet sources that are healthy and delicious.  By searching for these things and reading the ingredients on labels of the foodstuffs you buy, you'll be helping yourself help yourself.  Don't just replace sugar with something that is not healthy because there are far too many products that I don't believe are as good for you as they claim to be.

I think we all chastise ourselves far too much and the shame just fuels what we eat, including the sugar we take in.  Sugar is very addictive and I'm sorry if the sugar industry does not like that, but if you see how much is added to everything we eat, I think the evidence speaks for itself.  If the sugar industry really cared about health, they'd be trying to put themselves out of business.

A little sugar can be good, but right now we are addicted to sugar.  The obesity and diabetes rates have skyrocketed which I feel are a direct result of sugar.  If you can just cut the amount of sugar down in your diet, you done so much for yourself to make your mind and body healthier.

These are 5 ways I used to cut sugar back in my diet.  What have you tried that helps you?  Let's all learn together.  Leave a comment of what has worked personally for you.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Movement Does A Body Good

We all know this.  It isn't anything new, is it?  Yet, it seems like we all forget about it.  We go through life, sitting on our backsides far too much.  Whether its at the office all day long, or at home in front of the TV and the computer, we are far too sedentary.

Movement does a body good, but in order to do that, you've got to get yourself moving.  You need activity.  Exercise is often considered a negative word and people don't do it, but if you just take a 15 minute walk every day or twice a day, it could really change your life.

I know, I'm just as guilty as the next person.  I either get to busy and forget to do it or I just don't make time to move and get active.  So, while I'm writing this to the "collective blogosphere", I'm really writing this to myself.

Yet, I'm not going to let you off the hook that easily.

We as a society are far too sedentary and it is affecting the health of our country.  If you really want to do something for your health, get moving.  Studies show that you'll help ease chronic pain, diabetes, obesity and weight issues plus overall, you'll just feel better.  Movement does a body good!

You don't have to make it elaborate!  Just get moving your body.  Get out there and find whatever it is that you like to do, and do it.  It could be a 15 minute walk in the morning or at night.  Maybe even taking 15 minutes and going for a walk at lunch could do so much for your mind and body that you would improve your health and well being drastically.

If you're like most, you probably say, but I'm too busy.  I don't doubt that, but if you keep running your car without an oil change, what will most likely happen?  You'll have a major repair.  The same goes for the body.  If you keep pushing it without taking care of it, sooner or later you'll be sitting in the doctor's office with some major health condition.

Find a time, any time of the day that works and make your activity simple.  We all have a few minutes at some point in the day.  Take five minutes every hour and walk up and down several flights of stairs in your office building.  Take 15 minutes at lunch and walk around your office building or workplace.  It can be that easy and it can make a big difference.

I'm personally going to start trying to walk 15 minutes a day in the evening.  It will help me clear my mind and sort of draw my day to an end.  It will give me some activity that may very likely prevent some major health conditions showing up.  Statistics show that if we don't get activity (or exercise) in frequently, we're just setting ourselves up for major medical costs.

So, will you join with me and start doing some activity each day?  Go ahead and leave a comment below and together we can have a great impact on our health.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Is The Food You Eat Killing You?

I know at one time, I never really worried about what I ate.  In fact, I doubt I even understood what good nutrition was.  I grew up in a home that had a big garden and so we enjoyed fresh vegetables much of the year or even canned produce through the winter.  I didn't realize for a long time that vegetables came from the store.

Unfortunately beyond that, we didn't practice good nutritional eating skills in the house I grew up in.  We didn't have an overabundance of candy or soft drinks, but we had plenty of cookies and other things.  Until I got sick in high school, much of our food was fried or cooked in ways that weren't healthy.

I'm glad we didn't have all the candy that there is on the shelves today.  I'm glad we didn't have the sugar flavored coffees and endless supplies of junk food.  Heck, I'm grateful we didn't have "normal food you now buy" that is so adulterated with foodstuffs and ingredients which in my view, are not healthy.  The food manufacturing industry wasn't quite as toxic as it is today.

Consume far too much sugar...

These days, everyone consumes far too much sugar.  In fact, if people really stopped to look at how much sugar they consume in their day, maybe they would wake up.  Maybe you're one of those people like I was that didn't pay attention to this.  Don't just assume that the products you buy or the things you eat don't have added sugar.

Most people barely eat whole foods in a day.  They miss out on the phytochemicals, the enzymes and the raw vitamins and minerals.  They miss out on the live stuff that helps fuel the body and keep it healthy.  The whole foods helps counteract some of the junk that we stuff into our body.  Every day, we do a whole food smoothie and you can read about it in my blog post at Making Whole Healthy Food Smoothies.

Sure, you may have gotten this far in life and have no health issues that you know of at this moment.  The more junk and sugar and non-whole food stuff that you consume, the more you're taking on a risk that could get life threatening.  It really can.  Just observe the increase in cancer and diabetes and other health ailments.  So many of these things can be prevented or reduced, but once we get past that point of no return, then we play havoc with our lives.

Start paying attention to what you eat...

If you want to change the course of things in your life and really take care of your body, then start paying attention to what you eat.  Know what is in the stuff you consume.  Read the labels.  Take notice of it.

Make little changes each day.  Trying to change all at once can be overwhelming, but make it a goal that you replace something that is junk or full of sugar with something that is more healthy.  Replace soft drinks and coffee with pure water, not some adulterated sugar flavored beverage that claims to be healthy.

Start making yourself whole healthy food smoothies using a Blentec Blender.  I will tell you that this has been one of the best things we ever did.  We don't get sick and we don't do flu shots.  We have a much more responsive and healthy digestive system.  We feel better and don't need to go to the doctor constantly for everything.  Whole food smoothies are nature's medicine.  If you truly care about your body, you will strongly consider doing this.

Take an inventory of what is in your cupboard and look at all the sugar amounts plus other ingredients.  Now, I do realize the food manufacturers try to hide some of the ingredients and there are some I don't think they actually list on products.  Be careful when reading the labels, because sometimes they are very tricky.  Get to know what you consume.

We've only got one body in this lifetime.  If we abuse it, it will try to keep up for a time. If we continue abusing our body, it will not be there for us.  Minor changes in what you eat can make big differences.  We all owe it to ourselves to be the healthiest we can be and we owe it to the ever increasing costs of health care to try to help ourselves, rather then just sit back and let our food kill us.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Is Sugar Toxic?

In an episode of 60 Minutes, Dr. Sanjay Gupta did a special that I found to be very interesting.  The topic of this episode was, Is sugar toxic?  I found this some time ago and it was very profound in my view.  While I personally have tried to reduce sugar intake and most likely consume far less than many people, it is something I struggle with in my diet.  Sugar tastes so good and it is addictive.  If you combine the addictiveness of it with emotional turmoil, it can really increase your desire and consumption in my life.

I personally never drink most sugared drinks.  If I go to a restaurant, I may have soft drinks, but I limit how much I drink.   The remainder of the time I drink water.   We don't have sugar or sweetened drinks in our house.  Most of the time I try to cut down on sugar in every way possible and in fact also we read the labels of the stuff we buy to determine just how much sugar is in a product.  It will surprise you at how many things you buy in the store that have large amounts of sugar in them.  In fact, you will be surprised at some of the stuff that has sugar added into it.

Paula Deen And Type 2 Diabetes

Paula Deen's Resturant
Lady And Sons
Savannah, GA

Sometimes we get an opportunity in life to really learn, grow and evolve as a human. Unfortunately too many times, we reach for the easy way out. We look for the quick fix of putting the band aid on something, thinking that we have solved the problem.

Paula Deen is one of the loves of my life! She's my long distance girl friend. Of course, she probably doesn't know that, but I fell in love with her southern charm. I admire what she went through in life and how she raised herself from the ashes to get to where she has in life. She is an inspiration. A few months ago, I got to visit her restaurant "Lady And Sons" for the first time in Savannah GA which was a special treat for me.

I'm sad that Paula Deen is going through this rough time and I don't wish Type 2 Diabetes on anyone. I'm hoping that instead of just turning to the medication, Victoza,  that she searches out more natural methods of working with this disease. I do see she is working on changing her diet and adding exercise into it, but there are many other things that could offer

Clutter In Our Life, Part 6

Clutter #6 - Health care, Doctors, and Medicine
Part 6 of 10

At one time, I thought the only way you became healthy was going to your doctor for a checkup and then running to the pharmacy to fill the prescriptions the doctor prescribed. Of course, after some life changing moments I went through, I woke up and realized that I was chasing an illusion instead of something based upon reality.

Doctors, medicine and health care do have their place. Please do not misunderstand me! However, when we fail to take care of our bodies and we fail to heal ourselves from our past, going to the doctors for answers is like jumping off the edge of a cliff and hoping we'll fly like the birds and butterflies do.

We as humans pound our bodies to death each and every day, then we wonder why we get the pains we do, the heart disease, diabetes, cholesterol problems, as well as anxiety, depression and various other conditions. Most of these things are a result of us ignoring our bodies and numbing ourselves to what we feel.

If we spent as much time taking care of ourselves as we do listening to the medication advertisements on TV, we might all be surprised at how much healthier we become. Our country is spending records amount on so called health care and in reality, we are no more healthy than we were 50 years ago.

Taking a pill or drug to treat one symptom so affects some other part of the body that the next thing we find is we are treating another system of the body. It becomes a viscious circle until one day we will find that that drugs and pills have done us in.

Come back tomorrow for part 7 of this series, Clutter In Our Life. Below are the various parts to this series that you can read as well.

Clutter In Our Life Series
- Introduction
Part 1: Spending our hours watching TV news
Part 2: Keeping Ourselves Constantly Busy
Part 3: Numbing Ourselves
Part 4: Following Blindly
Part 5: Food Choices
Part 6: Health care, Doctors, and Medicine
Part 7: Hydrating Our Bodies
Part 8: Thinking We Have The Answers
Part 9: Exercise Is For Another Day
Part 10: We Fail To Evolve
- The 30 Day Challenge


Blog Post & Images (c) 3/20/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com

Most Diseases Are Reversible With Food

Did you know that most diseases are reversible with food? According to Jeff Primack, from QiRevolution.com, he has developed Food Based Healing Smoothies that have helped many people.

Just attempting to eat healthy is not enough because so often we either process, freeze or mutilate our food to the point of losing so many of the important nutrients, enzymes, vitamins and minerals. Just because we eat frozen vegetables or processed foods with healthy things in it, does not mean we are eating healthy.

Fruits and Vegetables contain naturally occurring photochemicals which Jeff calls, the spark plugs of the immune system. Humans do not generally get enough of them. Phytochemicals hide in the cellulose fibers of seeds, stems, skins and rinds of the fruits and vegetables we eat.

When is the last time you ate the entire apple including the seeds, stems, and apple peelings? Do you realize that the best part of the apple is in the seeds, stems and skin? Or you ate an avocado with including the seed and shell? What about the cucumbers that you buy in the store where you normally peel off the skin and eat the inside? (granted a waxed cucumber is probably not the best thing and our food industry is determined to wax every cucumber sold or charge outrageous prices for ones they don't). Just think of the fruits and vegetables you eat and how much of the "good stuff" of these do you throw away?

What Jeff Primack teaches, is how to make a smoothie using a high powered blender (found on Amazon - Blendtec TB-621) and dumping in all the fabulous phytochemical rich foods. We've been doing this for almost two years and not only does it really (and I mean really) help digestion, but we don't get the colds and flu like everyone else is getting. In fact, I overheard a conversation the other week about how these two people had been through two or three rounds of a cold and flu and it was almost foreign to me what they were talking about. If I feel anything like a cold or flu coming on, the smoothie usually knocks it out so quick that whatever was hitting me comes and goes within a day at the most.

At first, I wasn't sure if I could drink the smoothies. They taste good but sometimes you get ingredients that have off flavors and then it makes it hard to drink the smoothie. Once I got accustomed to it, I really don't mind it at all. It is part of our routine in the morning and we have gotten the prep work down to a science now so that it is not hard to prepare the stuff to put it in the blender. Our biggest problem is living in an area where produce in the stores is sometimes difficult to find. Sad that this happens, but it is true so it makes it a challenge at times.

There are so many nutritional things out there from Green Drink Mixes to Juice Plus to NingXia Red to Healthy Chocolate and so many other things. I know all these places have their research and their success stories and so on and so forth. I'm happy for them. However, when you have to start spending considerable money each month on a processed product that you can only buy from certain places or through some Multilevel Marketing (MLM) system, the questions in my mind run over each other trying to get answered! Sorry, but I'm just not into buying a product that someone claims and regurgitates the claims that it is the best thing since oxygen was discovered!

With the smoothies, I am using natural food that I can buy at my local market or I can grow on my own. I put it in a blender for a couple of minutes and drink it. That is all the processing there is. There is no heating and cooling and pressing into a pill or powder. There is no freezing or bottling and letting it sit in a warehouse or on a truck. There is no wondering what is truly in the product because I can see with my eyes and with my hands, just what is going into what I am consuming.

Even if phytochemcials are not something I specifically know about, it is not hard for me to understand how eating whole, natural and fresh fruits and vegetables is very healthy for a person. We've all been taught that we need to eat our veggies, so it is not difficult to understand how beneficial this is. If you're skeptical, than why not put it to the test? What do you have to lose? After all, I don't make any more money telling you about this if you do it or you don't do it. I'm just passing along something that I do and have had very positive benefits from.

Here are some examples of specific foods for specific diseases.

Kiwi - Helps to reverse Asthma
Avocado: Helps reverse heart disease, plaque in arteries and losing weight
Asparagus: Naturally Reverse Cancer & Detoxification
Bitter Melon: Naturally Reverse Diabetes and Improve Blood Sugar
Reishi: For Reversing Heart Disease, Chest Pains, Asthma & Depression
Maca: For Energy, Better Sex, Menopause, Fertility

Take a moment to look at Jeff's website along with the videos that he has put up on YouTube. It will explain much more and will give you further insight into the healing smoothies. If you want to get the smoothie formula book that I use, see the image link below to purchase this on Amazon.


Further Reading
1) Food Based Healing And Smoothies
2) Smoothies, A Year Later
3) Qi Revolution - Jeff Primack
4) Food Based Healing Introduction

Blog Post & Images (c) 2/20/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com

Parents Warned of Energy Drinks

When I saw this CNN Health Article, Pediatricians, Parents Warned On Energy Drink Dangers, I thought it was a good one to post on the blog. So much of our country does not fully understand what is good for us to consume and in what quantities. We constantly indulge in things that are not necessarily the best for us. Energy drinks are one such example.

Recent studies have shown that energy drinks can cause major health problems in children and young adults. Many of the energy drinks contain high amounts of caffeine and other stimulants. According to the Poison Control Center, there were 5448 caffeine overdoses reported in 2007. It has been reported in the Journal of Pediatrics that energy drinks could be especially dangerous to children with ADHD, diabetes, sleep disturbances and eating disorders.

There is much more in this article that you can read and hopefully many people will at least wake up a little. If we stress our bodies and our minds with substances that are not meant to consume in these quantities, it will have an effect on our lives at some point. Even if it is not immediate, the body can only take so much before the breakers are tripped. We as a country have a long way to go to really understanding what good health and good nutrition is all about.

For Further Reading:
1) CNN Health, Peatricians, Parents Warned On Energy Drink Dangers
2) Confusion - Symptoms Of Stress, Part 9



Blog Post & Images (c) 2/19/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com

Food Based Healing & Smoothies

In May, I went to a Qigong Seminar at the Orlando Convention Center put on by Jeff Primack from the Supreme Science Qigong Center. It was a great seminar and one particular part of it was about food based healing. I will be honest in saying that sometimes I'm a little skeptical about these food based healing/nutritional programs. There are just too many out there claiming that their nutrition concepts and their products are by far the best thing since oxygen was created. With that said, this presentation was not "radical" statements but more down to earth, logically conceived thoughts. So it had my attention. We had considered "juicing" and "juice plus" and the "green drink" before this but were not completely sold on the concept of these things. Plus they were processed products being sold by some company that was getting rich off the concept. I really have a problem with that when it comes to my health.

If you go to qigong.com you will see much of the information that he presented in the seminar on this topic. In a nutshell, it is taking vegetables, fruits and herbs with the use of a high powered 3 hp blender to make smoothies. As he explained, this is not the same thing as juicing or taking supplements or other products. By using raw vegetables, fruits and herbs intact, you get the most benefit because of the phytochemicals that are located within the skins, stems, seeds, etc. The parts that most in our society discard as waste is where the true health benefits of these food items are located. Juicing removes these things and so while you are getting fresh juice, you're missing out on some of the greatest naturally occurring compounds for healthy living. Even all of these supplements, health candies and foods and all the other products on the market, do not have what you can find in raw foods. Processing does nothing positive to foods and so with the 3 hp blender, you're able to keep the foods intact but masticated enough where your body can easily and quickly digest them. I know I'm glossing over the fine details here but if you go to the link at the beginning of the paragraph, you'll see the details behind what I'm saying.

One of the biggest things that got everyone's attention towards the end and had people hysterically laughing was when he said if you do the smoothies every day, you will have big bowel movements (increased digestion). Amongst the gasps in the audience, he assured people that this was a good thing because it removes toxins from our body. Someone asked him how long that took, and he said when he first started doing the smoothies, it was the very next day. We found the same to be true basically. You do not necessarily need to go out and purchase things like Activia to do what natural foods from the grocery store can do for you.

Another thing he shared was that in his smoothie recipe book, there are many recipes that help people recover from all kinds of health conditions. Not only does it help but many people have reversed cancer, diabetes, heart conditions, and so on. I have no way to prove that but he has stated that many people have shared with him how the smoothies not only helped them but it reversed these serious conditions.

The thing I like about this is I am not buying some supplement that has been processed from someone that is getting rich from me. There is just too much of that out there and every time I see it, my eyebrows raise a few feet in the air. There are many claims made and there are many getting rich off of those claims. I have tried these things too and again, I'll just ask that you really and truly consider the "marketing" of these so called cures.

The smoothies are simple. It is pretty simple to cut things up and prepare. We use a recipe that is just for general health and includes the following items - cucumber, avocado, beet, fuji apple, corn, strawberries, lime, cilantro, rosemary, basil, mint, Goji berries, distilled water. Of course if you want the exact amounts, the recipe and more information can be found in the Smoothie Formulas book by Jeff Primack. Almost all of these products we buy in our local grocery store so it isn't like we have to purchase anything real expensive from any one person. The Goji berries are the only thing we have to go to a health store to buy.

Like I said, it isn't easy to prepare this and only takes a few minutes. We purchased the Blendtec 3 hp blender which isn't cheap but it grinds all of this up into a smoothie. Most regular blenders just wouldn't have the power to do that. We drink around 20 ounces of it a day or sometimes more depending upon the quantity made that day.

When we considered doing this, I thought I was going to not want to eat anything else after drinking that much smoothie. I was surprised that within a short time, I am hungry and have a strong desire to eat. This may be due to the fact that the food is so highly digestible in this state that the body absorbs it quickly.

If you do these smoothies, you won't be disappointed and it will not take long for you to see the results. Plus, there is no way I would normally eat all of these ingredients every day. I had never eaten beets or avocados before in my life. The herbs, especially the mint, helps give it a good flavor along with the strawberries. We're learning how to make it so that it tastes a little better to us as well but it has become part of our daily routine.

So, don't just take my word for it that it has helped the both of us greatly, but check it out and read more about it. And if you are wanting to enhance the health of your life, try it out for yourself and see if you don't see the benefits from it!

And NO, I do not make one cent on recommending this or writing this post. I am just doing it because we are pleased with the results. In fact, we purchased our blender directly through the online Target store website and got it a little cheaper plus had free shipping. I would recommend though that you purchase the smoothie recipe book or other information he has so you'll understand what you are doing better.

Just a final side note - the blender for this works in making all kinds of things. It is so simple to use, clean and it will blend anything together you put in it. It is an amazing blender!

For Further Reading: Smoothies, A Year Later