This article was published in Sanlian Life Weekly, No. 44, 2019, with the original title "Quit sugar, a false proposition for fashionable life? ", unauthorized reprinting is strictly prohibited, infringement must be punished
Recently, online stars and various health bloggers have set off a trend of abstinence and resistance to sugar. In their descriptions, quit the sugar-added drinks and juices in the supermarket, quit those sweet cakes and afternoon teas, quit simple carbon water that is easily absorbed by the intestines, and you will see your weight drop. , The skin is delicate and smooth, which sounds like a healthy lifestyle. However, under this trend of abstaining from sugar, followers seem to have begun to use more rigorous methods to fight sugar. Is this a practical fashionable lifestyle or just a quick shortcut to lose weight?
text/card student
Is sugar quitting as amazing as the celebrities and internet celebrities have introduced?
quit the time card with added sugar
Wang Lu was interviewed on her 21st day of quitting sugar. We met at a cafe with desserts, which was undoubtedly a severe test of her sugar quit plan. But she was unexpectedly calm, "The hardest time has passed, I now have no desire to eat sweets."
I asked her why she wants to give up sugar, she said: "My father is a diabetic, and my mother also found out that he was in pre-diabetes two days ago. This reminded me to pay attention to my body." Among them, her reason is the simplest. Wang Lu is a consultant for an investment company, and her high-pressure life makes her eating habits mess. Three take-out meals a day, two cups of milk tea in the afternoon, and working overtime until midnight made her extremely hungry, so she ordered another supper. At the weekend, she was lying on the sofa while eating snacks and watching the drama. When she showed me her photos two years ago, I hardly recognized it. Wang Lu in front of him was fat, rough and dull, and he was different from the light girl in the photo.
Because of the high pressure of work, Wang Lu suffers from sugar addiction. As long as she is depressed, it seems that only Sugar can solve her problem. Whether it's a bottle of Coke or a bag of wafer biscuits, she can escape her anxiety. After every feast, Wang Lu has to face a longer sense of guilt, self-doubt and disappointment are always tortured. she was. The escalation of sugar addiction made her appetite more and more out of control. She was obviously not hungry. She couldn't control herself when she passed by the dessert shop. After eating a piece of cake awkwardly, she was relieved.
I am not a sugar lover, and naturally I cannot understand the kind of "addiction" described by Wang Lu, but if we observe the addiction of smokers, they are essentially the same. Wang Lu, who is addicted to sugar, has always wanted to quit his dependence on sugar. “I forgot how many times I quit and failed again. In the end, my body seemed to surrender to this additive.”
last year Wang Lu watched a documentary about sugar "The Sugar Film" (The Sugar Film), which made her re-examine her eating habits. In this documentary, it is mentioned that although the lives of modern people are more convenient than any time in the past, if the supermarket removes the food with added sugar, only a few 20% of the food is left on the shelf to choose from. This reminds Wang Lu to pay attention to the sugar content on the back of the bag when buying any packaged food. This attention shocked her.
"Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2016)" proposes to limit the intake of added sugars, which should not exceed 50 grams per day, preferably within 25 grams. However, Wang Lu has calculated according to her normal daily diet, and her intake of added sugar is more than 10 times the normal intake, and this trend is intensifying. The endless thirst for sugar is like a bottomless pit.
The effect of excessive intake of added sugar on the body has been well-researched. Gu Zhongyi, director of the Beijing Dietitian Association with 8 years of experience as a nutritionist in a tertiary hospital, gave a set of research data from the United States. A study published in "JAMA Internal Medicine" on February 3, 2014 further found that most Americans eat too much sugar, which can significantly increase the mortality of adult cardiovascular diseases. Compared with the population with about 8% of energy supplemented by sugar, the risk of cardiovascular diseases in the population with 17%-21% energy supply increased by about 38%, and the mortality rate of the group with more than 21% energy supply increased twice.
For a sugar like Wang LuFor addicted patients, reducing the intake of added sugar is undoubtedly a top priority. The experience of failing countless times told her that only by being cruel to herself can she not follow the old ways of her parents. As a result, she joined a 30-day event on the Internet to quit sugar and check in, record her diet every day, abstain from all sugar-added foods, and strictly control carbohydrate intake. The first few days of clocking in was not smooth, and her withdrawal from sugar made her feel like on pins and needles. "In the beginning, the withdrawal reaction was very strong. Panic, headache, nausea, constipation, and insomnia. I took a three-day vacation with the company. I couldn't concentrate on doing even the simplest thing." She said. After
survived the first week, Wang Lu's symptoms were relieved, and her eating habits changed due to the need to quit sugar. She began to calm down and consider making some simple meals at home and bringing them to the company. Eggs, vegetables, low-fructose fruits, and nuts were packed in a small box, and she would eat some when she couldn't survive. After 10 days of checking in, the unexpected change came from when she ate low-sugar foods, such as strawberries and other fruits, she was able to taste the "sweet" taste that she had overlooked before. "This kind of natural sweetness in food has not appeared for many years, and the emotions that could not be satisfied even after swallowing a piece of cake in the past have magically disappeared."
Wang Lu arrived on the 21st day of sugar withdrawal. The dependence on sugar came out. When I asked her what is the biggest benefit of quitting sugar for you, she said: "After getting rid of this'sweet devil', I recovered my taste buds. As for a healthy life, I have lost weight and my skin has become Very good, it's like a gift when you choose another lifestyle." Compared with those who follow the trend of sugar quitting, Wang Lu's desire to quit sugar is full of positive energy. When she started to focus on how to eat healthier, it seemed to somehow healed anxiety that she didn't even realize. "Every time I failed to give up sugar in the past, it made me feel more dependent on my mind, and it made the next time to give up sugar more difficult. This time it was a little different. The first step in giving up sugar was to change my lifestyle. When I learned to slow down my life, I tasted the'sweetness'." Giselle, a fitness blogger, did a week-long ketogenic diet experiment this year. The purpose is different. The war between Wang Lu and added sugar is probably the most uncontroversial one. All experts will persuade such sugar addicts to quit sugar addiction early. Another trend is a bit worrying. Stars and Internet celebrities who claim to quit sugar and lose weight generally define the objects of withdrawal more widely, and the most unavoidable carbohydrates for the body have become what they want to be. One of the diets eliminated on the table. Among them, the Ketogenic Diet (KD for short) that has received the most attention is one of the most extreme methods in the "sugar quit world". Because countless Hollywood stars such as Kim Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow, Halle Berry and other stars have adopted ketogenesis as a fast weight loss diet Therefore, this treatment method originally applied to children with intractable epilepsy has become the new favorite of the trend of weight loss.
Giselle, a fitness blogger with 3 million followers, introduced me to the principles of the ketogenic diet. The ketogenic diet allows the body to learn to directly decompose fat through the withdrawal of sugar. The ketone bodies produced after fat decomposition provide energy for the body and the brain. Because the intake of carbon water is restricted, the body will first consume glycogen for energy. It causes rapid loss of water in the muscles and rapid weight loss. Therefore, in this diet plan, 75% fat, 20% protein, and 5% carbohydrates are needed in the daily energy intake.
Giselle has focused on the ketogenic diet for many years, and she completed a week-long ketogenic diet experiment this year. "The ketogenic diet has always been controversial. People who believe that ketogenicity is good mostly benefit from the maintenance of a good body, while most people who oppose it come from the side effects behind ketogenesis." There are many ketogenic friends around Giselle. The number of people who failed on the third day was numerous. "The reason is very simple. The traditional ketogenic diet requires very low carbohydrate intake, which almost excludes carbohydrates from the diet structure, and also adds a lot of fat and protein. This is extremely important to the traditional Chinese diet. Big challenge." Are there any successful cases around? Giselle said the most successful case cameSince her cousin, she lost 30 kilograms due to ketosis, and all kinds of indicators seem to be normal. "When my cousin was living in China, he had failed ketogenesis several times. As a carbohydrate country, we faced too many temptations. When he arrived in Japan, vegetables are more expensive than meat, which is the best way to cultivate ketogenic eating habits. Environment, so you can easily lose weight through the ketogenic diet. This is also the reason why the ketogenic diet comes from Western society, because their diet is easier than ours to reduce carbon water to less than 5%."
A fitness blogger who has suffered from bulimia, she was once trapped in a fierce struggle with diet. In college, because of the need to lose weight quickly, she would vomit out food to keep her figure after overeating. Over time, she didn't need to pick her throat. As long as she brought her head close to the toilet, the conditioning reflex would vomit, which caused her body to collapse. the edge of. Giselle is well aware of the hazards behind the seemingly quick and easy fat loss methods, so she is very cautious about this ketogenic experiment for the public.
From the first day, she recorded her meals and changes in her body. She wrote down her typical ketogenic meal for three meals a day in her public account Fit4life: breakfast includes fried eggs, sausage bacon, bulletproof coffee (bulletproof coffee is black coffee with butter or coconut oil added, and its uses include relief Hunger and stable release of energy without affecting insulin); lunch is chicken breast with salad, and chicken breast is cooked with butter fried; dinner is cauliflower pizza (use cauliflower puree instead of flour). After reading Giselle's meal, you may say that it looks very delicious, but don't forget that it is constantly high in fat and protein. It is not easy to stick to it. In the past, Giselle had only heard that ketones lost weight, but she was shocked when she was weighed at night and lost 4 pounds a day. Because of the rapid loss of water, her abdominal muscles that had been wrapped in water suddenly became obvious. This immediate effect is why the ketogenic diet is highly sought after by celebrities and internet celebrities.
Starting from the third day of ketogenesis, Giselle's body was abnormal. The defenders of the ketogenic diet gave it a name called "ketogenic transition period." This is the stage where the body's functions are adjusted. In the past, the body and brain's habit of relying on sugar for energy supply was broken. After the carbon intake was greatly reduced, the body experienced a shortage of functions. In the process, Giselle found that her thinking ability declined and her dizziness was dizzy, just like a machine was about to sleep or go down, and she had dry mouth and insomnia at night. Will
disappear? She said that if your body is used to and adapted to relying on burning fat as a means of energy after reducing carbohydrate intake, then the body will return to normal. The side effects of the entire transitional period have become an important reason for the criticism of anti-ketosis. What makes Giselle feel scared is that her menstruation did not come this month after the ketogenic experiment ended. This phenomenon is very common among many ketogenic people. Among Giselle's friends, there are also cases of back rashes due to practicing the ketogenic diet. Of course, this type of situation will disappear after normal carbon water is restored.
Regarding the question of whether a ketogenic diet is feasible, I interviewed Teng Yue, a nutrition technician, director of the Haidian District Maternal and Child Health Hospital. She said: "The ketogenic diet should be carried out under the supervision of a doctor. First, it is necessary to determine whether the liver and kidney function of the ketogenic person is normal. Secondly, it is necessary to know the tolerance of the ketogenic person, and finally to find out the ketogenicity. What is the purpose of this. Introducing the medical diet system to the public level requires vigilance in itself. There is no problem with ketogenesis itself. What is problematic is the blind pursuit of ketogenic results."
Huang Zhen opened in Shunyi, Beijing An organic restaurant has a weekly workshop on intestinal healing
Teng Yue also mentioned that the current proposal to quit sugar and control carbon water intake is because in modern society our daily intake is compared to our past Almost any era is beyond the standard, but this does not mean that our body can completely say goodbye to sugar. The healthiest lifestyle should be a reasonable diet that balances the intake of protein, fat and carbohydrates in the body.
For those popular diet methods that are spread by celebrities and Internet celebrities, they tend to be sought after and supported in the short term. However, if you want to judge its longer-term impact from a medical standard, there is still a lack of large-scale populations and more. Strong evidence. Gu ZhongA pair of ketogenic diets were questioned: "It is undeniable that ketogenic diets can quickly reduce weight in a short period of time by suppressing appetite. It is an effective means for people who want to lose weight in the short term. Whether the population can control weight and not rebound for a long time, or can ensure your health and prevent chronic diseases, this is still lack of evidence. "Z2z
After this ketogenic experiment, Giselle received many questions from fans. When asked, as a ketogenic experimenter, will she continue to develop ketosis in the future, she gave a very pertinent answer: "Long-term ketosis is not the most suitable diet plan for me, but if there is a need for short-term weight loss, then Ketogenesis is the first choice. No diet plan is perfect. Before making a plan, you should have a comprehensive understanding of your own situation and be able to distinguish between'exaggerations' and'facts'."
In fact, Giselle still Do you have any thoughts? Those celebrities who practice the ketogenic diet almost have their own professional doctors and nutritionists tailor-made for them. Those blind followers who have not even figured out the principle of ketogenesis "big "My aunt is missing" is just normal.
How to eat in a restaurant without sugar? Compared with the ketogenic diet,
also has a fashionable diet method popular among the middle class-intestinal healing. Compared with the simple and rude ketogenic diet, this alternative medicine appears to be much gentler. It emphasizes the improvement of lifestyle, which makes it popular in Western society.
Huang Zhen’s organic restaurant is opened in Shunyi. She holds workshops every week to introduce some dietary ways to balance intestinal flora and balance immunity. Almost all the people who come to her class are "Shunyi moms". , Are middle-aged women who are extremely picky about food. The ingredients in her restaurant come from a cooperative organic farm, saying that it is a "sugar-free" restaurant is likely to cause misunderstandings. For example, don’t you sell rice and noodles here? What do you use as a substitute for the white sugar added to food?
To be honest, before contacting Huang Zhen, I, like most people, were very skeptical about the existence of sugar-containing substances in her restaurant.
Huang Zhen studied environmental protection as a graduate student, and later worked on battery recycling in an Australian listed company. In 2006, I opened a Guizhou cuisine restaurant with my friends, the predecessor of the organic restaurant. At that time, the restaurant was opened in the alley. Like most restaurants, it didn't pay attention to whether it was organic or whether it was necessary to strictly control sugar. According to Huang Zhen's recollection, she ate organic spinach for the first time in 2012. She was pleasantly surprised to find that vegetables that hadn't used pesticides turned out to have this taste, which immediately ignited her idea of becoming an organic farm. She was extremely mobile and rented a piece of land on the outskirts of Beijing and started growing organic vegetables and raising chickens without feed. At the same time, after giving birth to her eldest daughter, Huang Zhen's body had a problem for a while, her face exploded, and was accompanied by chronic back pain. She was a little bit confused and she ate organic vegetables. How could she still have such serious problems? Physical problems. She looked for reasons in her diet until she saw a book called "Eat the Soil", in which she seemed to find the answer.
"Eat the Soil" opened a door for Huang Zhen to recognize the body. The author of this book is Dr. Josh Axe, an American natural medicine expert. His core view is: allergies, autoimmune diseases, obesity, depression and other seemingly unrelated diseases all come from the imbalance of our intestinal flora and all come from leaky gut syndrome. He also pointed out that oversupply of sugar, processed foods containing a large amount of gluten and additives caused damage to the inner wall of the digestive tract, and proposed ways to rebuild the microbial flora by improving food.
When Huang Zhen knew more about leaky gut, she began to practice the diet therapy method in the book about intestinal healing. On the one hand, abstaining from sugar, sugar is the first culprit to create leaks in the intestinal mucosa. Second, start to consume foods that help the intestinal heal, such as grass-fed cattle and sheep bone soup that can help the intestinal mucosa repair, and Coconut products that kill pathogens such as bacteria and fungi.
It is not too difficult for Huang Zhen to change her diet, but for her to quit sugar is a huge change in her life. She talked to me of childhood stories. "I am a child who was fed by sugar. When I was a child, my parents were busy with work. I was brought up by a nanny. The children love to eat sugar. When I eat sugar, I am very behaved. So the nanny at home gave me a full bedside. A full jar of sugar." Huang Zhen described in detail the dependence on sugar back then, eating white rabbit toffee when she was young.She likes to eat one by one, using her tongue to make the candy very soft. When the last candy is about to melt away, she feels uncomfortable. She feels that this beauty is about to end. She can't enjoy the moment at all and is busy. Eat another one. According to Huang Zhen's recollection, by the third year of high school, she had broken 13 teeth and couldn't even eat rice after filling and pulling. After adulthood, Huang Zhen, who studied in Australia, was still hungry after eating three bowls of rice every meal. This made her not only burst acne, but also advanced into aging. How did
quit such a strong dependence on sugar?
"I later discovered that dependence on sugar is not only a habitual craving for the flora that causes inflammation in the intestines, but also people's obsessions to comfort their hearts through sugar. After I truly understand my body, I have prepared my body. And psychological preparation to welcome this change." Huang Zhen said.
The intestinal healing method for her at this time is still at the theoretical level. Following the instructions in the book, she replaced the white sugar with stevia, the ordinary flour with coconut flour, and the ordinary oil for cooking. Replaced with coconut oil and ghee (grass-fed butter). All in all, once you embark on the path of intestinal healing, all the original spices at home must be replaced with non-additive, non-over-processed substitutes that are beneficial to the intestinal tract. This concept sounds good, but it is indeed a difficult job. In the 28-day healing experiment, Huang Zhen went through four different processes. The first is that after sugar withdrawal, a new anti-inflammatory diet intervenes to repair intestinal leakage. In the second stage, the supply of sugar is cut off, which reduces the bacterial flora that causes inflammation in the body, and the flora that is beneficial to the body becomes active and makes the intestinal bacteria. The group is back on the healthy track. In the third stage, the body's internal inflammation slowly emerges, the body starts its self-healing function, and the final stage is the complete cleanup of the body. At this time, there will be new requirements for daily use items (such as bed sheets, hand sanitizer, etc.). Although
is also a way of relieving sugar, it is fundamentally different from the ketogenic diet. Intestinal healing does not require ketogenesis, but only a diet therapy that balances the intestinal flora. After 28 days of intestinal healing, sugar abstinence can be continued selectively. However, those who have experienced changes in food rarely relied heavily on sugar.
Going back to the original question, what would Huang Zhen’s restaurant use to replace sugar? If you stick to this lifestyle, will your diet become monotonous and boring?
After reading the book "Eat the Soil", I discovered that the ancient wisdom of mankind has countless alternatives. White wheat flour cannot be eaten, coconut flour and almond flour can be used as substitutes; spaghetti cannot be eaten, zucchini noodles and quinoa noodles are healthier choices; regular milk cannot be drunk, then coconut milk and almond milk without added sweeteners will be A better choice... The list of alternatives is still long. I no longer worry that Huang Zhen's restaurant is a place of asceticism, but vaguely worry about the time and money spent to stick to this lifestyle.
This kind of natural therapy that hopes to rebuild healthy intestinal flora through changes in dietary structure has been launched and won the praise of many people in the industry. For example, David Perlmutter, MD, who wrote "Cereal Brain" ) And Mark Hyman, MD, who wrote "Glucose Solution" are all supporters of this camp. So, can intestinal diet therapy become a boon for health followers? Teng Yue believes that the far-reaching significance of intestinal flora research for health has indeed received enthusiastic support from scientists in many fields. However, due to the limitations of current research in this field, more time and data support is needed. The conclusion is still too early.
For more exciting reports, please refer to this new issue of "Chen Yinke", click on the product card below to purchase
