It’s late September, not back in 63. The money you scrimped together to afford the multitude of holidays, festivals and the like is now a distant, hazy memory. The sound of snotty sniffles is now more familiar than the clinking of cocktails and your pasty complexion has recently had people wondering if you’re actually ill. Whether your job is as BS as you think it is compared to polishing dolphin heads or whatever you’ve got planned for summer ’16, the last place you wanna go when you eventually finish work is gonna be the gym. Ultimately though, if you’re not prepared to put the winter work in, you can say ta ta to looking like the body you probably have as your lock screen wallpaper.

So 2015 was the year everyone either started up their own clothing brand, became a PT or shifted JuicePlus to their hairdressers mates at yoga. There is however a silver lining to this new influx of vainglory- despite those taking advantage of people that are uninformed. This being the fact that the expanse of supplement/lifestyle brands that are essentially encouraging crash diets will be exposed on their ineffectiveness after the first month or so.Now I can TRY and respect the fact that ambassadors of such brands utilise social media as an advertisement platform as it can make them more money, but conveying results from the use of a product they are selling but not using is simply exploiting the naivety of those just wanting to get in shape by any means.With every motivational quote spelt out on a plate of gluten free spaghetti comes the type of people that’ll probably be dishing out mounds of irresponsible advice to the paying customer. Of course someone going from 4,000 calories to half the amount from just protein and greens WILL start seeing changes, this is simple mathematics that no one should be paying weekly for. The effects of such sudden alterations to calorie consumption goes way beyond problems with functional energy because of less fuel than normal, restriction from certain food groups that are deemed BAD although essential, such as CARBS and FATS may induce extreme levels in blood sugar which can be toxic.

This along with the fact that FRUIT is incorporated so much so in new diet plans and media advertising that seems to CONDONE heavy consumption, when really it should CONDEMN. We all know by default fruit is a ‘health’ food, and yes, if your diets been trodden on, a fresh bit of fruit would probably put a spring back in your step. We’ve been eating fruit for thousands of years, it’s got us this far? Most come from plants, plants are nature – therefore it cannot be harmful? especially when smoked? perhaps another topic.

When it comes to diets, you give people an inch and they take a mile, especially when it comes to ‘natures fast food’ surely blending up ten different fruits with some kale has got to be better than my regular 500ml of CocaCola? Well actually, probably not. If you’re reading this with the phone resting on your NutriBullet, set me down on the table and listen carefully.

So fructose is a naturally occurring sugar found in fruit that will usually be the other half of a 50/50 split with glucose. Glucose is essential for energy and the main component for fuel of most living organisms, although this doesn’t mean you can sink a litre of Lucozade everyday because it’s on the neck of the bottle. While glucose can be used as fuel for the body, fructose can only be metabolised by the liver, not only making it completely useless to us, it is even toxic to the liver. This is similar to alcohol in the way that it prioritised during the flushing of of toxins before metabolising fat. Most people tend of drink alcohol on the weekends, so the majority have the days that follow to process this, yet daily “juicing” to extreme extents will not only be spiking your blood sugar levels, causing a low when you don’t get a fix, but also overworking the liver by overconsumption of fructose.

If you’re guilty of getting the majority of your daily “nutrients” from fruit that isn’t in capsule form, try and work out just how much sugar you are actually consuming in a shake or smoothie as it could be having a negative effect on how you suppress sugar cravings whilst dieting. Perhaps including more vegetables higher in potassium and are more calorie dense- leaving you fuller for longer. This will help improve energy levels regularly without too much of one thing and not enough of the other.

Ultimately sugar doesn’t cause diabetes, eating too much of it does, and while fruit is certainly better than most things, not recognising that the ‘healthier’ card may be more damaging to your health and more importantly damaging to your diet progress, will present yet another variable stacked against you when it comes to stepping on the scales, or sandy beach.

 

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JAK3D 👊