1/2 Full or 1/2 Empty: Carbohydrates and Sugar

DUH !!

(Read The Label) I just realized this morning that despite my becoming an educated dieter I have failed to be more conscientious in reading the labels on what I'm eating.  I'm being very careful to look at sugars, carbs, and fiber.  I got really upset this morning when I noticed the Ezekiel brand English muffin I was having for breakfast only had 3 grams of fiber.  I was sure that for same brand of bread I was getting 6 grams of fiber when I was making a sandwich.  Well folks,  I wasn't careful.  I thought I was having a 15 carb  English muffin with 3 grams of fiber.    TURNS OUT, my friends, that the nutritional information was for ONE HALF of an English Muffin!!! So I was really eating 30 grams of carbs and getting the 6 grams of fiber.  Maybe I never noticed before, but I always thought English muffins (at least Thomas' brand) was one whole English muffin per serving, not just half!   So I hope I helped you SEE THE LIGHT and be a bit careful in reading the labels.  OR perhaps you should have been telling me to be more careful!

PORTION CONTROL!

 

Not only do you need to look at the nutritional information, but remember to see how much is in a portion! As far as the label over on the left, I have NO idea what product it is, but there's only 1 gram of sugar, only 4 carbs, a bit of fiber, and I can have TWENTY-FIVE pieces of it!!!!   Now, on the other hand I love the SoBe zero calorie Lifewaters, but if you look at the label you'll see that 1 serving is only 1/2 bottle!!  This is the same for everything else you buy!  One other thing the guy at the Whole Foods bakery made me aware of that I didn't notice before.  He said to look at the breads on the shelves that say "Low Carb" because what companies have been doing is slicing their products thinner and repackaging them as low carb...same product, just less of it in a different package.

GETTING KIDS CONDITIONED TO READ LABELS

Speaking of seeing the light...I'm "aged and confused" after seeing Bill Engvall, Jeff Foxworth (Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?), and Larry the Cable Guy.  They are three fantastically funny comedians who put on a terrific show at George Mason University's Patriot Center.  Until my ankle is healed after surgery I can't drive. So, my son and I stayed with my niece and her family overnight in northern Virginia so we could see the show and then get picked up by my wife the next day.  Jen and Drew's kids are incredibly cute and smart.  My niece who is also on this Jorge Cruise Belly Fat Cure diet has taught her kids the "Belly Good" foods and the "Belly Bad" foods and they both look at the labels.  It was really cute having my 8 year old grand-niece say to me, "Uncle Dave, you can have these!  Look, < 1 gram of sugar, 15 carbs and you can have 26 of them in a serving!"

Oh man, I hate when people keep pounding on me talking about the same thing over and over....just ask my kids about how I NEVER do that!!!  ha-ha-ha    AND I hate to sound like one big advertisement but this Zevia soda is still my favorite stuff!  While visiting my niece, she and her husband gave me a taste of a flavor I cannot get at my Whole Foods store here in Richmond.  It's the Black Cherry.  Now this soda had no aftertaste and tasted like the black cherry sodas that I used to drink as a kid (and stopped because of all the sugar).  Zevia is a company who has a line of seven different flavors of zero calorie sodas.  Now, this company does not use saccharin, aspartame, or sucalose but rather uses a natural sweetener called Stevia.  There are 12 grams of carbs in each can and all the carbs are sugar alcohols, NOT sugar.  And as an earlier post I had indicated, erythritol carbs have no calories or effect on blood sugar!  The Ginger Root Beer and now the Black Cherry are my two favorites.  I love the Orange, Twist, and Cola as well.  The problem is that the only place I've seen it in stores locally is Whole Foods.  If you don't have a Whole Foods near by you, Zevia is available at Amazon,com.

WHOA!!!!

My son says I'm nuts, but I think if the guy above didn't have a beard and mustache and was a bit heavier in the face, he'd look a whole lot like me!  But that's not the point I wanted to make!   Imagine that bowling ball he's holding is a 16 pounder and imagine he's holding TWO of them.  Then imagine walking around with those everywhere you went. Those two bowling balls represent just about the amount of weight I've lost so far!

Words to ponder

For the end of today's post I want to leave you with some words to ponder:

• The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer far fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans
• On the other hand, the French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
• The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
• The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer few hearter attacks than British or Americans.

  Conclusion: Eat and drink what you like.  It's speaking English that kills you.